


In War Then Love

by mantisbelle



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Gen, Illustrated, RvB Reverse Big Bang, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-04 17:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12776334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantisbelle/pseuds/mantisbelle
Summary: All's fair in love and war.(All art was done by @powerfulpomegranate on Tumblr, Strudelgit on Ao3)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for the RVB Reverse Big Bang, 2017. All of the art was done by the amazing [@powerfulpomegranate](http://powerfulpomegranate.tumblr.com/), and it is here to bless your eyeballs with something much better than the writing that is meant to go along with it. 
> 
>  
> 
> [All of the art can be found here if the embeds in the fic are somehow broken. If they are, let me know and I'll go in and fix them. ](http://powerfulpomegranate.tumblr.com/post/167754907805/my-piece-for-the-rvb-reverse-big-bang-i-worked)

She'd grown up hearing stories about the planet that she called home, stories of their past. Stories about how they’d been scouted out and colonized for the sake of an intergalactic war. Stories about her ancestors, fighting tooth and nail to carve out an existence on a planet that was all too easily forgotten.

Chorus was far from perfect. It was a foothold chosen for what had been there long before man had ever set foot there. It was difficult to live on, and once they’d been forgotten after the war it had only gotten harder to live with. It had a varied climate that was harsh on everyone that chose to exist.

Despite its many flaws (and there were so many flaws,) Chorus was _home_. It always had been, and Vanessa Kimball was sure that she would stay there for her entire life. From the moment that she’d been born until the day that she would die. Despite the hardships, she was sure that she would stay.

It would be easy to leave Chorus, if she wanted to. It was an outer colony planet on the outskirts of civilization that nobody paid any attention to now that it had outlived with its purpose. As soon as the war had been over, the UNSC had pulled out and Chorus’ support had gone with it. Chorus’ government had become up to its own citizens.

Vanessa loved her planet, and she loved its people. She’d wanted to believe in them.

When she had been young, she'd thought that Chorus’ own government was a good thing, some sort of paragon for the people of Chorus to look up to. After all, they were a symbol of independence and freedom from outside interference. How could it have been anything but a good thing?

How naive she had been.

As Vanessa got older, the gaps in her perception began to grow. She began to realize that there were things about Chorus’ federal government that were wrong. Irreparably wrong, without significant overhaul of their constitution and everyone at the top.

In short, it wasn’t a wound easily mended.

She watched an ever widening gap in wealth and resources widen further and further. She heard about corruption in the upper ranks, problems with debt for the planet, and since they were going ignored by the UNSC there weren’t many buyers for what resources they _did_ have.

Years passed on and on, and things only got worse and worse.

The first march on Armonia happened when she was about to turn nineteen. The disenfranchised people of Chorus walked through Armonia with signs and chanting, demanding something better with every step. A change of leadership, or constitutional amendments, even just an investigation into corruption within their government. They just wanted something that would make things better for the people of Chorus rather than only its upper echelons.

But there was one thing that was always true, and it was that Armonia always stood strong.

_Always._

It was the planet's pride and joy. The nuclear plant in the center of the city was the jewel of Chorus, a gift left from the UNSC that still provided power to everyone. Armonia was _everything_. It was a center of government, a population centre. It was a place of business and commerce, and in that way it managed to feel like the center of the universe.

For those who were lower on the economic scales, it was a place of envy. It was a symbol of everything that was wrong with Chorus and the state that the UNSC had left it in. While the rest of the planet starved, Armonia always, always stood tall and strong.

_Always_.

While the rest of the planet was left to rot, Armonia only got better. The towers got taller, the buildings that were now treated as belonging to their government became more and more opulent. The politicians and generals would get more and more corrupt. Businesses would boom, and society would _thrive._

Well, it would thrive for those that could afford a life in Armonia. For everyone else…

Vanessa didn’t want to be a fighter. She didn’t want to walk among opposition when there were better solutions at hand. She didn’t want to strap on her boots, or carry signs, or place herself at the front of every protest. But it was what she _had_ to do because she loved her planet and the people on it. She’d stand in front of government buildings and skyscrapers, armored soldiers always standing guard and _waiting_.

It had seemed like they had been getting somewhere.

She remembered it all too well, the catalyst that had shifted them from protesters to fighters to something else entirely.

It had started just like any other day.

Vanessa Kimball, 21 and strong-willed had stepped into the middle of a protest and fallen in step behind a man by the name of Roland Marshall. She knew his face well enough- he always stood at the front lines, and had welcomed her beside him. He was an old soldier, someone that had fought in the war and had seen the worst of it. He’d made a name for himself as a leader, a de facto voice for their cause.

Vanessa couldn’t pretend that she didn’t admire him on some level, or at least what he represented. Leadership.

There had been a gunshot.

All it had taken was one gunshot.

She remembered it clear as day, how it had cut through the autumn air and caused an panic. It had only been seconds before utter chaos had broken forth, with civilians and military attacking each other with little discrimination.

Armonia became a battlefield all because of a single gunshot, and the protesters had no choice but to run and hide for fear of retribution. Vanessa ran, despite the fact that she herself hadn’t contributed to the violence directly.

A week later, the capital building was bombed in an act of apparent retribution.

It would be the first attack among many.

The response was rather immediate. Armonia began to exist only what Vanessa could only describe as martial law, preparing for yet another attack. Another bombing, another riot in the streets. They would always come, and when those incidents occurred the clashes would be so violent that for people to die in the streets wasn’t uncommon at all.

At a certain point, the military presence in Armonia was so strong that the rebellion had no choice but to flee.

None of them were happy about it, because they were the ones that had already been trod on. They were the poor, the hungry, and the broken, and _they_ were the ones being forced to leave behind the only home that many of them had ever known.

Far from Armonia, in a wide cave that stretched so deep underground that a lake had been able to form, another army began to rise. Vanessa watched as Roland Marshall, who had stood at the forefront of so many protests became a leader, the general to a new army that was ready to fight against anything in order to care for their planet.

As a general he was fairly hands on. Vanessa found herself even training under him because there was nobody else to do so.

The New Republic was named by an almost unanimous decision, and Vanessa Kimball was one of its first privates. An impromptu government was stitched together from the people and the knowledge that they had.

For its many flaws, the New Republic was functional.

The New Republic was ready to go to war.

She couldn’t exactly claim happiness for this fact, considering that she had never wanted to be a soldier. Deep down, none of them wanted to see Chorus’ problems reach the point of an actual war. Nobody wanted there to be more deaths, more losses or gunfights. All that they wanted was to see Chorus standing strong and independent from any sort of outside intervention.

But that was an impossibility, it seemed.

The Army of the New Republic was rather clear on its goals. Take back Chorus and their homes, and rebuild the government to better serve the people. Prosecute and investigate those that had been accused so many times over for corruption. See to it that the ones that would lead Chorus once the war was over were only the people that had its people’s best interests in mind.

After all, Vanessa was sure that they would see the rifts and gaps mend eventually. She was sure that the freshly started civil war would end. Corruption would be handled. People would be able to simply live their lives without having to fear for them. They would not be exploited, and they would be allowed to _thrive._

But war was impossible to avoid at that point, and so when the civil war started it came to little surprise.  

Within the first years of the war, Vanessa watched her friends fall, one by one. Villages and towns were destroyed, and Armonia’s status under martial law only strengthened. It was impossible to get into, and impossible to get out of.

People suffered en masse.

Occasionally, there were attempts on both sides to reach out for each other. The Federal Army would send a message to the New Republic asking them to agree to stand down. They would notify them before bombing runs with an offer to stop the violence in exchange for their lives. The Federal Army even offered the people of the New Republic the chance to run far from Armonia and start their own formal government, nevermind that not every part of Chorus was perfectly habitable, or that there were no fancy cities like Armonia on the other side of the planet.

The New Republic stood it's ground, and fought more and more fiercely for a free and independent Chorus.

When Vanessa was 24, a mercenary came knocking on Roland Marshall’s door offering his services. Apparently the two of them had known each other in a past life, and for a fee, they could have professional assistance in their war. They could have the upper hand.

Roland had taken no time in accepting his old acquaintance's offer. With that, the New Republic was the first side in the war to enlist the help of a mercenary.

His name was Felix (or so he claimed), and he was charismatic. Smart, snarky, always wearing a smile on his face and with a laugh on his tongue. He was a good fighter, someone that knew the ins and outs of military life and was happy to bring in whatever help he could. Warthogs, guns, rations and vaccines- for a fee, of course. If the New Republic could think of it, Felix could get it.

Felix wasn’t all talk, it turned out. He just liked to hear himself talk. A lot. When it came down to it, the mercenary was as good at his job as he’d claimed. General Roland Marshall kept him at his side, and together they pushed the New Republic into a new level of strength.

Vanessa didn't spend a lot of time with Felix, but she found herself becoming more and more distant with her mentor with every passing day. Her path would cross with one of the two men in training exercises and the occasional skirmish.  As the war worsened and the battles became more frequent, she found herself out in the field more and more.

She would climb ranks.

On a rainy day in September, General Roland Marshall was shot dead no more than five hours after he had his morning coffee and a smoke outside of their cave base. Vanessa had been sent off into the field with him and Felix on a standard hit and run mission. The Feds had a base nearby and they needed equipment.

Marshall had been shot while they’d been trying to run, too many people piled into one or two warthogs.

She didn’t see what had happened herself, too focused on her own payload at the time. But Vanessa did see the body, and she heard what Felix had said as the man had been carted into base for immediate care that wouldn’t be nearly enough to save him.

Felix had called it an execution, not a battlefield death. Vanessa never asked him about that terminology, too unsettled by the churning in her stomach and her nerves by everything that had happened.

Roland Marshall became a martyr of sorts. The first leader that they had died nobly in battle, supposedly shielding a young private from a bullet while they’d made their getaway on what was otherwise a successful engagement.

A new general was chosen from the ranks. The world span on and the war continued.

Vanessa Kimball never wavered in her loyalty.

* * *

 

Chorus was far from perfect. It was something that she had come to realize when she was just a girl, still diagnosing patients on television shows and always considered too bright for her age. That was such a constant thing that people would say about her.  
  
She was so smart, she was too bright for a girl her age, she should be doing better things. She should be getting off of a planet like Chorus, she had _potential,_ she was a _genius,_ she was a _prodigy._  
  
And people would say it constantly, as though she didn't know all of that. Sure, she absolutely could have gone off and made a life for herself in one of the inner colonies. She could have been great, and she could have gotten proper schooling and become the greatest doctor that the galaxy had ever seen- at least that was what people said. They liked to ignore the possibility that she could be that great from Chorus.  
  
But Chorus was her home, and it had many, many flaws. It would take a fool to think that it wasn't without them, and Emily Grey was no fool. In fact, she was far from a fool. She could see Chorus’ flaws as easily as anyone else on the planet could.  
  
And for that reason, she chose to stay on Chorus. After all, if Chorus was doing so poorly and was in such shambles, then it was part of her duty to stay there and do what she could to improve it.  
  
Emily Grey would go to medical school as a prodigy. She would carve out her own path for herself, and she would find herself being transferred to Armonia General Hospital almost as soon as she was eligible for a position there. The hospital was the jewel of Chorus, and always in need of better and better doctors. There was job security in it in that sense- people always needed doctors.  
  
For years she was happy to serve there. General practice and surgeries but the more severe treatments were typically few and far between. They were difficult to deal with, but Emily Grey was a professional and she knew for a fact that she was exceptionally good at what she did. For a long time the most severe problems she’d have to handle would be the ones borne from car crashes and births once in awhile.  
  
Every morning, Emily Grey would walk to work. She'd pack a small bag of everything that she could ever need for a day at the hospital. A healthy lunch full of all the most delicious local vegetation, a spare set of clothes, and her trusty purple headband was always there to keep her hair from becoming an annoyance while she worked. Most mornings, there was nothing to worry about. The people in the streets of Armonia were like her.  
  
Just simple people doing the things that they needed to get what they needed.  
  
But Chorus was a flawed planet at it's core. Emily watched as people got more and more frustrated with their government. Before she knew it there were protests in the streets. People would walk by Armonia General Hospital carrying their signs on the way to other, more important places.  
  
Chorus was flawed, but this was not the way to go about things. If people wanted for things to change then they needed to exercise their rights to try and change things. Simply making demands would never be enough, and that was something that Emily was sure of.  
  
Change couldn't necessarily be rushed into. The protesters were demanding an invasive surgery without any care for providing anesthesia first. Such swift action would only bring greater problems, and would ignore the root causes for their issues.  
  
The best way to treat any illness was at its source, after all.

But of course, their peace could not last. Not when it's strength was as questionable as it was.  
   
Emily had just been hoping for something better than what would happen.  
  
The first person that she saw for something that would be ultimately become a civil war was a young woman. She'd been one of the armored guards outside of the capitol building, and she had taken a bullet from an unknown source. The people that had brought her in couldn't do much of anything to enlighten the doctor on the situation.  
  
There had been a protest outside of the capitol building, and a guard had been _shot_.

And nobody knew who had done it. Within minutes there were the sounds of chaos coming from outside as Emily went to work trying to save a life. Time was of the essence, after all.  
   
That woman was the first, and Emily had been given all but 30 minutes to treat her before more victims came streaming through the door. People that had been pepper sprayed, beaten back with humblers, shot, bruised, and trampled. People coming from all walks of life, and not a single one was able to provide an adequate explanation for what had happened.

The story ended up always being the same. Someone had fired, and a riot had broken out.  
   
For days, Emily treated them. She watched new patients stream in and out of Armonia General Hospital for a while, and did her best to deal with it. She did her job, she treated them as they came. But it was hard not to take sides when she could barely walk to work without finding trouble for it.  
  
Chorus was her home, and she loved her life in Armonia. But when she watched the protests get worse and worse and progressively more violence, her confidence in it all waned. Her planet was falling apart, bit by broken bit.  
   
Soon enough, it was going to be a warzone.  
  
Emily had hoped that it wouldn't come to that, but it did.  
  
Martial law was imposed over Armonia. People within the federal government claimed that it would make them safer, and as far as she was concerned they were right.  
  
Her walk to work in the mornings got a little bit easier, at least for a little while. Once bombings and riots became commonplace, Emily started looking for better ways of getting to work. Safer ways.  
  
People needing help came in more and more and more, but Emily treated them all the same. Her loyalty was to the people of Chorus above all else.  
  
War would come.  
   
It had been inevitable.  
  
The rebellion, who had decided to brand themselves as the New Republic as though that wasn't a presumptuous thing to do, were ran out of Armonia. Rumors claimed that they had run from the city and had created a new base of operations. Some cave that nobody had ever heard of.  
  
In Armonia, they braced for a worse and worse war. Civil war. It was something that Emily Grey would have never expected as a child, and yet here they were. She was going to briefings at the hospital on how to treat worse and worse injuries. In what feels like a year she’s moved from treating crash victims to performing highly invasive surgeries daily in an attempt to save any lives she could.  
  
It started that way.  
   
It wasn't long before she was learning field medicine because if they were going to be on the battlefield, someone needed to be able to support them. Besides, she was a genius and if anyone could learn to jury rig together an IV drip from a plastic bag and a coat hanger, it would be her.

Regardless, that didn’t mean that she wanted to have to know how to do those things.

But she learned because protecting people was ultimately her duty.

* * *

Vanessa Kimball didn't like how armed conflicts became a part of her day to day life, and she hated watching her friends fall one by one as the battles came and went. One week, they're in Armonia making a push for the capital building because they want to send a message, and Felix is at the forefront bringing all of the morale and charisma that he possibly could to the battlefield. They’re making a raid that’s almost a success.  
  
The next week they're out in the jungle. Private Astrid Martin falls and breaks her leg. Felix makes a comment about how he hates being stuck on babysitting duty and waves his magnum around so carelessly that Vanessa needs to remind herself that this man is supposedly career military.  
  
Or was career military, seeing as he was just a mercenary these days.

There are rumors about what made him make that jump, but Vanessa chooses not to consider them.  
  
Felix is just doing it to keep his own head calm, Vanessa tells herself as she helps Martin through the woods and back to base. From what she'd heard Felix had been the same way before with General Marshall too.  
  
Felix was rough around the edges in every way.  
  
But for all of his flaws, the man was ultimately an effective fighter. He got them what they wanted, and even helped lead the New Republic to a few victories.  
  
Vanessa would sit by the radioactive algae lake that they had found underneath their base. She’d be exhausted, feeling like she hadn’t slept in weeks. There was a thrumming in her veins that told her that she wasn’t going to be able to calm down anytime soon.  
  
Something that people hadn't told her about combat beforehand- it was a shot of adrenaline that would leave her heart beating hard hours after the fact. That was why Vanessa liked the lake, as dangerous as it had the potential to be.     
  
It was quiet. Calm, even.  
  
It bathed the world in soothing blue and green, and in those times that she was there Vanessa felt like she could _breathe_ .  
  
Since the war had started, she's stopped taking her helmet off. It felt safer that way, even when she wasn’t in a place to be fired on. Even when there was safety in numbers or thick walls around her or she was literally underground in an area that could only be reached by going through the base.    
  
There's a sound behind her, someone in armor walking down into the cavern. Vanessa is sure that she's about to be yelled at, told to go and get back to work or training or whatever it was that she was supposed to do.  
  
But it isn't one of her commanding officers.  
  
It's Felix.  
  
"You know you shouldn't be done here, kid." Felix comments. He walks down towards the side of the lake with a certain sort of swagger that's not really befitting a soldier. Vanessa can't help but wonder what has driven him into mercenary work in the first place. Of course, there are plenty of rumors about the topic but she chooses not to listen to them.

"I know." Kimball replies, staring down at the lake. The algae is so thick that she can't even see her own reflection. It glows, and there's an urge to reach out and touch it. She could engulf herself in its bioluminescence and brilliance.  
  
But it was dangerous, so she instead wraps her arms around herself.  
  
"And yet you're down here." Felix comments as he flops down next to the lake and stretches out. "Which one are you, again?"  
   
"You... don't know?" Vanessa asks, lowering herself to sit there by the lake. Cross-legged.  
  
Felix shrugs. "Most people don't come back from war, kid." He responds so nonchalantly that it's chilling. Like he’s been through this sort of song and dance before. "It's hard, but when you've been doing this for as long as I have, you stop getting attached."  
  
"Right."  
  
"So you are?"  
  
"Vanessa Kimball." She replies.

He eyes her from behind his visor like he’s expecting to find something there. Whether or not he actually does is something that she can’t be sure of. Regardless, he peels off his helmet and sets it down at his side, and then stares at her with beady black eyes. He’s older than she’d originally thought, but something in Vanessa that she can’t name tells her that she can’t just voice that.  
  
Felix, if anything, is a vain man. That’s something that she realized on day one when it came to him.  
  
“Kiimball.” He repeats the name, like he’s trying to weigh it or test it for some significance that she can’t figure out. He stares her down and squints, leaning in slightly. “What rank?”  
  
"Private First Class." Vanessa rattles it off, like there was nothing else to it. After all, it's just her rank. She would have been sure that Felix would have known it, but then again... He was a mercenary. It wasn't exactly in his job description. Felix didn’t actually need to know anything about the workings of the New Republic beyond the mission dossiers he was given.  
  
He cocks his head to the side and leans back. "So they haven't promoted you yet?"  
  
"No." Vanessa sighs, looking back out at the lake and peeling her gaze away from Felix. He was probably just trying to get a read on her. "I'm just a private."  
  
"First class." He interjects. "I've been hearing rumors about a Corporal Kimball, but..." He looks off, up at the ceiling and intentionally far away from her. Felix waves a hand, like he’s pushing the thought away from him physically. "Yeah, must have been just a rumor." Instead of putting his hand back down at his side, he pushes his hair back out of his face. It's a surprisingly slow motion, and he pushes the one bit of his hair that won't get out of his face normally out of the way. "So then, Private First Class Kimball-" He begins, flashing her a coy smile. "What are you doing down by a radioactive lake? You come here often?"  
  
"I came here to think." She says, and she reaches up for her own helmet, detaching it with a hiss and setting it down at her side. It feels like that could be the least that she could do to put them on more even footing. "Today was... hard."  
  
"You're telling me." Felix scoffs. "I wasn't kidding when I said that I hate babysitting."  
  
"Martin broke her leg." Vanessa says back, and she watches his expression. It remains impassive, bored even. "I'm sorry that wasn't your idea of an ideal mission."  
  
He shrugged. "I've been through worse." Felix stares down into the waters, and there's an expression that passes over his face. He looks almost sad, Vanessa thinks, but he banishes it pretty quickly.  "Your friend will be fine. Broken limbs, cuts, bruises, bullet holes-" Felix pats on his right calf, like he's proving a point. "All just an occupational hazard. You're in the army, you've got to get used to people getting hurt."  
  
Despite it all, Vanessa knew that he was right. She had decided to join an army, and when she'd done so she'd known exactly what she was getting involved in. That was true for everyone else that was in their base.  
  
But that didn't make her feel any better.  
  
"I know all of that." Vanessa says. "When I agreed to join this army, I decided to put my life on the line for the sake of a free and independent Chorus, but-"  
  
"But?" Felix asks, looking back over at her. "There shouldn't be any 'buts' in that, Kimball. You’ve signed your life away."  
  
"But I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it." She admits. "I can't stop thinking about everyone that's..."  
  
Felix nods, and he looks sympathetic. "I get it.” He says quietly. "I lost most of my unit back during the war, so trust me, I can relate." He leans back, and flops down so that he's lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling of the cavern. Felix cushions his head with an arm, not bothering to remove his armor. "You want some advice?"  
  
"I certainly wouldn't mind it."  
  
"You're up for promotion if what I'm hearing is true-" Felix begins, waving his free hand in the air above him. "-And if that's true you're going to need to keep a clear head. For the sake of your friends and subordinates and all of that."  
  
"I know that." Kimball snapped back.  
  
He stares over at her, unimpressed. "Do you want the advice or not?"  
  
"I want the advice." Vanessa answers, feeling a wave of shame wash over her. "What is it?"  
  
"Keep a log. Journal, diary, audio files, whatever. Do one every day. It'll help you keep a clear head, sort things out." Felix stretches out. "That's what all the damaged veterans do."  
  
"Like you?"  
  
"Me?" Felix asks, grinning wide. "Nah, I'm perfect. Wouldn't need that sort of thing."  
  
"Then how do you-"  
  
"Just trust me." Felix cuts her off. "It'll help."

Vanessa isn't quite sure whether or not the advice is really welcome or not. In a lot of ways it feels like Felix is overstepping his bounds, but in others it's genuine.  
  
And maybe, Vanessa thinks, he's right.  
  
"I'll think about it." She tells him as she gets up and picks her helmet back up. There were rumors going around that there was supposed to be a raid in the coming days of a nearby village. It won't be anything exceptional, if it goes right.  
  
If not...  
  
Well, then maybe Vanessa was going to need to do logs to sort her head out.  
  
He looks up at her in a way that reeks of suspicion, but Felix says nothing. Just nonchalantly waves her off almost like he's dismissing her.  
  
That night, Vanessa gets the news that she is indeed getting a promotion to Corporal.  
  
It feels bittersweet.


	2. Chapter 2

On some level, the fact that the Federal Army of Chorus decided to allocate funds towards posting recruitment posters felt like it had crossed lines. There was certainly a necessity for them, even ignoring that the army was seeing record recruitment numbers since the start of the war.

The saddest thing was finding them inside of the lobby for Armonia General Hospital.  
  
A necessity, Emily reminds herself.  
  
Within days it becomes apparent to her that there's a specific reason for the sudden calls to recruitment. The news is saying that the New Republic had attacked a nearby village in search of supplies, and that things were getting worse and worse.  
  
The New Republic had been raiding for necessities for some time. Even with rumors about a mercenary being there to help them bring in those things, they raided. Every time, it was looking for the same things- information, high ground, food, ammunition, medical supplies. The list goes on and on.

But those raids come at a cost, and Emily’s dealing with it firsthand. People are getting hurt in the process, and its like the New Republic doesn’t even _care._ The same way that they hadn’t cared about bombing Armonia before the war had kicked into gear.  
  
But, considering the rumors that Emily was hearing, it was likely that there was no care for the people on the other side of the fight. After all, the New Republic didn’t raid civilian outposts. Not that there were many of those left.

If anything, the raids served to be a sign that the war wasn’t slowing down anytime soon. If at all.

Nobody looking for peace or with good intentions would ever hire a mercenary. Emily doesn't know much about the story, just that the rumor is in wide circulation. A single mercenary wouldn’t be enough to win a war alone, but what he represents is far from insignificant.

The mercenary’s presence is why the Federal Army is stretching out and recruiting more and more people. They want to put together more military encampments to protect the people. They want to put a stop to this war before it can get even more out of hand than it already is.  
  
Emily considers enlisting properly instead of acting in a mostly volunteer basis. There are always going to be people needing saving in a time of war, and she is _the best._ The only thing that stops her from taking the plunge is that she’s still needed in Armonia.  
  
After all, protecting the people is the most important thing. And she’s taken an oath to do no harm that she’d prefer not to break if it isn’t necessary.  
  
More and more strikes happen, and it finally comes to a point where Emily decides she’s done. People are dying, and they’re dying too quickly. The more people that join the military, the more need there is for medicine, the more will _die_ .  
  
On a day in the middle of December, Doctor Emily Grey officially enlists in the Federal Army. She’s given armor that feels too heavy, and finds herself standing among the ranks with people like her. Normal people that don’t like how their homes were being attacked. Office assistants, doctors, waitresses, and students alike.  
  
She goes to physical training and on the first day she finds herself caring for a man that looks like he’s about to keel over or drop dead from an asthma attack. He has an accent, the kind that someone would get from living in Upper Armonia. He’s thin and blonde, and has a kinder smile than she has ever seen.  
  
And he’s smart, all things considered. At least compared to most, he’s smart.  
  
His name is Donald D. Doyle, and he’s a secretary. He’s never been on a battlefield before, and is two years older than she is. He’s polite and kind, and always is looking out for the best in the people around him.  
  
Emily realizes very quickly that he is also a coward.  
  
In fact, the first time that Doctor Emily Grey has to patch him up, Doyle almost faints at the sight of his own blood. In the end, it’s rather unsurprising that he would be assigned to the Brigadier General as a personal secretary of sorts. Doyle is far from suited to being boots on the ground.  
  
“Doctor Grey-” He manages to force her name out while he’s panting and exhausted. The man looks like he’s close to collapse, and for that reason she thrusts a cool bottle of water into his hand. “-I don’t know that I’m cut out to be a soldier.”  
  
“Well,” Emily says, relaxing a little bit herself because he is the only patient she has at the moment that she can do anything for. “I don’t know that I would say you make a good soldier, but you are an excellent secretary. After all, someone has to keep track of the pens that we have left!”  
  
“Of course,” Donald says, and she’s sure that he is smiling from behind his helmet. “Could I see that compliment in triplicate on my desk by tonight?”  
  
“I don’t think so.” Emily stands up and she feels like she’ll be ready to do another lap any moment. “Unfortunately, I don’t know that paperwork would do much to help you get better.”  
  
“But you believe that I will?”  
  
Emily paused for a moment and took the chance to really size Doyle up. As far as being a normal soldier went, the man was all but hopeless. She wasn’t even that sure of herself when it came to the question of whether or not she could make it as a soldier herself.  
  
The only difference was that as a doctor, or as an in-battle medic, she knew that she would never really be thrown into the middle of the battle to fight. Her position made her too valuable.  
  
Emily had no doubts that Doyle wouldn’t be as fortunate.  
  
“I don’t know.” She finally admitted, “I suppose that it will be up to you to show what you really are capable of.”  
  
And for just that moment, he almost seems confident in himself. A part of Emily, back in the deepest recesses of her mind, tells her that she had just made a mistake by telling him that. She’d placed him in a dangerous place.  
  
Instead of listening to that anxiety in the back of her mind, Emily did something else. She thought of a happy place, somewhere where the war was far away and people like Donald Doyle would be safe from harm.  
  
Emily dreamed of the Chorus of her youth,  but much better.  
  
She ended up being stationed there for three weeks before the inevitable came.  
  
The first sign that something was wrong was the sound of an explosion, coming from a mortar. None of them were able to locate where it had come from.  
  
It was the first of many, and Emily watched in horror as buildings began to crumble away and burn. Civilians panicked and ran, some taking their refuge in the base, while it was up to the soldiers to fight against the members of the New Republic that were now raiding this particular village.  
  
The world around her was lit in violent shades. Reds and oranges, yellows and burning golds.  
  
And there, cutting through it all was a bright blue visor on a set of tan armor, and the person that wore that visor was surely the one that was calling the shots on this particular raid.

Somehow, and Emily's not quite sure _how_ , they were able to fight away the members of the New Republic away from their current outpost, but it didn't seem like it would be enough. There was only so much that they could do to fix things without many resources at their hands, and for Emily...  
  
There was a lot that could be said for the difference between the theoretical performing of an amputation vs doing the real thing. There's someone lying on her table that can't be any older than 19. She's a foot soldier, a girl that enlisted because she'd thought that she would be able to protect her village which was now destroyed. She's baby faced with big green eyes, and there are tears pouring out of them and running down smoke-dirtied cheeks. Her hair was blonde once, but it’s singed and grey with ash.  
  
Emily does everything that she can to save the limb, but in the end it isn't enough, and she has no choice but to take it.  
  
The girl cries more.  
  
Emily's heart breaks for her. She slips off to the back of the hospital that night so that she can try to relax and collect herself. Of all the people that she'd been expecting to come to her, Donald Doyle is very low on that list. He has a mug of tea, and Emily can't even imagine what sorts of hoops he would have had to go through to be able to get it. She's sure that Donald had been scared out of his wits during the raids.  
  
The man sits by her and sets the mug down in front of her.  
  
"Doctor Grey?"  
  
"Hello, Donald." She greets him, staring out the window at the ruined village. They managed to get the fires to die down a few hours ago, but there is still that terrible smell of battle. It's smoke and fire, sulfur and _hate_ and sweat and blood all in one. It's clinging to everything. She feels like she’ll never get the scent out of her mind.  
  
Emily wants to imagine that the smell of blood didn't come off of that girl, but she knows it's wrong.  
  
"I brought you tea." Donald says, matter of factly. "I know that it isn't much."  
  
"I'll be okay, Donald." Emily whispers as she reaches out for the mug of tea that she'd been offered. It's not much, but she's going to do her best to enjoy it to the best of her abilities for now. that's the least that she can do- act like this hasn't shaken her up at all. "Thank you."  
  
He's still sitting there at her side. "I heard about what-"  
  
"I'll be okay." She reiterates, a little bit more harshly this time. "The tea means a lot."  
  
Donald sighs and reaches up to remove his helmet. He sets it down at his side and he looks exhausted. There are dark circles under his eyes. "I figured as much, Doctor." He hesitates for a long moment before beginning to say whatever it is that he'd felt the need to tell her. "Apparently it wasn't one of their main forces." He explains quietly. "At least, that's what I've been hearing."  
  
Emily blinks, thinking back to that slice of blue among all of the red. "Are you sure?"  
  
"I am." Doyle sighs. "We have reason to believe that this was highly organized, but leadership wasn't attached."  
  
Emily nods along, like it'll somehow make everything better. It doesn't. "I understand." She sighs. "How bad were the losses?"  
  
"The final numbers?" Doyle practically stutters the words out, his face shifting into an expression that crosses the line between shocked and sick. "For which side?"  
  
It confirms her worst fears.  
  
"I understand." Emily sighs, drinking down the coffee and getting up. She has to get back to treating patients. The fact that she'd been given even a few minutes to rest is a miracle. "I have to get back to work."  
  
"Are you sure that you are okay to see patients?" Donald asks, still looking so worried. "Because-"  
  
"I'm a professional, Mister Doyle." Emily says, forcing on a smile. "Thank you for your concern."  
  
With that, she leaves the room and goes to check up on her patients. The entire time, she thinks of things that could be better, things that could be fixed and things that could be good. The sunshine, the ocean, laughing children and brightly colored flowers. The funnel cakes that they sell at the old temples, the smell of the farmer’s market on sunday mornings. It's a happy place, and Emily wishes that she would never have to leave it in the end.  
  
She would not be so fortunate.  
  
As the weeks wear on and on, she lets herself drift into that place more and more often. It makes her feel better, it brings a comfort that she surely wouldn't have been able to find otherwise.  
  
It's only a matter of time before the next raid, and again Emily sees that sliver of blue that cuts through the red of battle so violently that it makes her feel like she's shoved a finger in an electrical socket.  
  
As it turns out, the woman is a constant, and she has a name- Vanessa Kimball. Doyle is claiming that she's believed to be in the New Republic's chain of command somehow. Sometimes there is someone at her back, a man in grey and orange, and the word that Doyle assigns to him is _mercenary._  
  
It shouldn't be a surprise when the Federal Army decides themselves to be so desperate that it is time for them to hire a mercenary themselves.  
  
Emily only finds out about it when he reports to her office on day one for a standard check in. He’s just looking to make sure that everything that he needed before he could go on active duty.  
  
Locus is an… odd man. He won’t give a first name, and will only take off as much armor as is strictly necessary for her to be able to do her job. He’s there for the job and nothing else, and whether or not there is something at stake for him personally beyond his paycheck is impossible to tell.  
  
Emily has to guess that the man has been offered a significant amount of money to stay there. Whether or not he would be as useful to the Federal Army as the mercenary that the New Republic had was still up in the air.  
  
The good thing about him was that he was skilled. For all of his coldness and reclusive habits, he was good at what he did. Emily found herself watching from the sidelines just in case as people that were barely more than children were trained into the ability to shoot a gun. They were getting ready for another raid, and they had no idea when the next thing would come.  
  
She was prepared to fight, if she needed to.  
  
But before that, she was going to go ahead and heal those that needed her.

* * *

 On a Tuesday, the second leader of the New Republic was shot and killed.

The manner in which it happened was something terrible. There had been a moment of outreach from the Federal Army following their last raid. They’d offered a treaty, one that had been good enough for them to actually take. The New Republic had even been ready to sign it.

And then their general had been assassinated. She’d been there, at the table, with a pen in hand and leaning over to sign, and then-

There had been the gunshot. Then the blood. Then the panic as the room broke out into violence because there was no way that it hadn’t been _planned._

Hours later, Vanessa had stood by and waited in the war room. She'd gained ranks in the last few months. She'd been placed in a position where she was able to go out and lead groups of soldiers. She liked it, for better or for worse. The responsibility was hard to deal with, but for Vanessa, she was able to really do things as long as she was in that rank.  
  
She wasn't in line to become a leader, not to her knowledge. Once in awhile Felix would tease her about it- call her the next general of the New Republic when they both knew that it was a joke. But still, that rumor that she was in the eventual line of succession remained.  
  
The third leader of the New Republic was a man from Armonia. He wasn't the best fighter, but he had strong abilities as a strategist, and wasn't afraid to go far to get what they needed. He was good at breaking into buildings, and was working on finding better resources that they could use.  
  
Vanessa didn't spend a lot of time with him. Instead, she was happy to lead her assigned groups and take orders when they were thrown her way. Sometimes she'd go out with Felix into the field, but usually she wouldn't.  
  
After a few years of doing this, it was no surprise that it had only gotten harder for Vanessa to keep moving. It seemed like she was losing soldiers every week or two, and the ones that she was able to be closer to, Vanessa did her best to know fully.  
  
She tried not to pay too much attention to how the new soldiers seemed to get younger and younger by the year.  
  
She tried not to think about how the numbers of civilians getting killed was changing from week to week either. It seemed like it was slowing down, but Vanessa was hearing rumors that it had more to do with the civilian population getting killed off in the crossfire of the war. And even then, more people were in the militaries than were living as civilians at that point anyhow.  
  
Vanessa stood outside of the base, and waited for her soldiers to come to her side. They were going to have a raid in two hours, and if that was going to happen, Vanessa wanted to have her men prepared for what was to come beforehand. They needed to be on their A game, just the same as she did.  
  
Felix came in, and leaned up against the side of the base at her side.  
  
"I hear you got landed with babysitting duty." Felix muttered as he slipped off his helmet and set it down at his side before reaching into one of the pockets attached to his breastplate. Vanessa watched as he fished out crumpled box of cigarettes and a lighter before lighting one and popping it in his mouth. Absentmindedly, he offered her the box. "Calm your nerves?"  
  
"I'd rather not." Vanessa answered, since she was in armor and was preparing for warfare. Not taking the chance to relax. "And it isn't babysitting."  
  
"You're kidding, right?" Felix laughs. "I swear to god we turned away a fourteen year old the other day. Mad world, huh?" He shakes his head and his expression goes completely somber and worried. "You're going to keep an eye on everything while you're out there, right?"  
  
"Of course I am." Vanessa says, holding her head high. "Why?"  
  
Felix shrugs. "Rumor that's floating around. I'll tell you if it pans out."  
  
Vanessa raised an eyebrow and watched Felix, looking for any sign that he was serious about whatever was going on. She was learning that Felix liked rumors, he liked knowing other people's business.  
  
She blinked and reached for her helmet, checking the seal compulsively. "Are you at least going to tell me what the rumor is?"  
  
Felix shrugged. "Rumor is that the Feds picked up a guy." He said quietly. "Mercenary. Like me."  
  
"Do you know him?"  
  
Felix shrugged. "Probably. Not exactly the biggest social circle, mercenaries. Odds are I've either worked with them at some point, or that we've at least brushed shoulders. To be as good as me, you have to have friends in all sorts of places."  
  
Vanessa nodded, unsure. "Aren't you worried about that?"  
  
"No." Felix sighed. "Everyone has their price. Us mercenaries know better than to get attached to people."  
  
"That's... dark."  
  
"Warfare is my business, Vanessa." Felix cracked a smile, taking another slow drag of his cigarette. "You get used to people not coming back. I know you're getting used to it."  
  
Vanessa nodded. "Babysitting duty, right?"  
  
Felix actually laughed at that. It was a sickening sort of laugh that was more than enough to make Vanessa's stomach sink. It was a reminder that she was indeed getting to a point where warfare was just a day to day thing.  
  
It was possible that someday she would do the same thing, and that scared Vanessa.  
  
Her squad was going to be there in a few minutes.  
  
"I should go." Vanessa sighed, taking a step away from Felix. "We have a raid."  
  
"Oh, trust me when I say that I'm aware."  
  
"I'll see you soon." Vanessa said, stepping away from Felix and going to approach the first soldier that arrived for the mission. He watched from the distance, enjoying his smoke and surely looking for something that Vanessa couldn't quite place.  
  
She got halfway away from him before Felix shouted to her.  
  
"Kimball!" He called. "The best way to do this one might be a hit and run!"  
  
"Got it!"  
  
And with that, she was able to really focus on the job ahead of her.

* * *

 

Emily had managed to go to bed at a reasonable time that night. She'd been able to crawl in, set her armor aside, and just relax for what little it was possible.  
  
Not that it was that easy.  
  
She was woken up in the early hours of the morning by the sound of an explosion. It roused her from her bed and she nearly fell out of it before reaching for her first piece of armor. If they were being attacked, then she needed to get up, and she needed to go and get out there so that she could help.  
  
Emily needed a whole three minutes to get into armor. There were explosions going on all around her, and she was sure that there were people running for safety.  
  
She needed to get out.  
  
The second that the last piece of her armor was on Emily grabbed her supplies and ran out there.  
  
Almost immediately upon getting outside, she watched as a bomb went off by the entrance. She took a step back, doing what little she could. There was the sound of her own blood rushing in her ears, there was her heart pounding against her chest.  
  
The ground was shaking with explosions, there were gunshots and then their echoes were layered over by the sounds of other gunshots.  
  
Emily ducked behind some burning wreckage, just so that she'd be able to get a good view of the area. There were Federal Soldiers firing on Rebel soldiers, and Emily needed to get to them.  
  
She watched as a New Republic soldier dropped down to the ground, completely dead. The gunshot hadn't come from one of their men, but rather from the high ground. Seemingly out of nowhere.  
  
Locus.  
  
Emily watched for a clear pathway and broke into a sprint, heading for the white armor that she recognized as being their own. She stopped among a group of men dressed in white and sage. There was one on the ground with significant gunshot wounds.  
  
No time to worry. She crouched down over him and activated her healing beam to try and see whether or not she could get anything done. She found herself looking up every few seconds when she felt she had the chance to make sure that they were safe.  
  
It wasn't that easy.  
  
She looked back down to the soldier, and the way that the red was staining her white armor. It was working its way down into her fingers, it  was going to stick to the undersuit. She was going to carry this man with her forever, in a way.  
  
Moreso if she didn't manage to save his life.  
  
It wasn't enough. She felt the man's pulse go dead and Emily was just about to move when she saw something out of the corner of her eye among the flames.  
  
Blue, just like she'd seen so many times before.  
  
The soldier with the blue visor raised her rifle and trained it on Emily's head.  
  
Emily was about to duck back down into cover behind the wreckage when a louder gunshot than the others sounded. It flew into the man beside the blue-visored woman, and Emily watched as the body crumbled into nothing.  
  
A second later, a pair of feet were materializing at her side, grey and green.  
  
Locus had come.  
  
The blue visored woman raised her rifle again, firing two shots, and Locus returned with one of his own that cut through the woman's leg.  
  
"Get out." he growled at her, and Emily had no choice but to take the order and run.  
  
For hours after, Emily couldn’t find a way to get that confrontation out of her head. There was so much about it that she couldn’t help but be unsure of. All that she could be sure of was that she was alive.  
  
As for the woman in the blue, whom Donald Doyle had called Vanessa Kimball, she couldn’t be sure.  
  
That question would be answered two weeks later when the Federal Army decided to do a retaliatory strike.  
  
It was clear enough that Vanessa Kimball had lived, and nobody was quite sure how. There were rumors about shields made from light itself, but in the chaos it was hard to say what was true sometimes.   
  
Considering that their own soldiers could disappear into thin air, Emily found there was no reason to doubt that.


	3. Chapter 3

They fought for years. Vanessa Kimball watched yet another mentor fall before her.

There was a certain sort of brutality about how it had been done. This wasn’t a killing that had been on a battlefield or even in a treaty room. The general of the New Republic had been killed as he’d tried to fly offplanet.

Looking for _outside help_ since the war clearly wasn’t going to be settled on Chorus as easily as had been hoped.

 It had taken all of twelve days for the New Republic to be able to retaliate. Their retaliation came in the form of yet another one of their signature hit and run attacks. They just had to bomb a few bases to send a message right back to the Feds.   
  
On the thirteenth day, Vanessa Kimball was promoted to General, and suddenly the lives of the soldiers below her meant so much more. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t been important to her before, but with the position there was a new sense of responsibility attached to what she was doing. Any call that she made was one that she would have to be willing to see the consequences for.

That meant that if her soldiers died, that would be a weight that ultimately rested on her shoulders. Already Vanessa was having some difficulty grappling with that thought alone. After all, her soldiers weren’t _soldiers,_ really.

 They were children, they were angry, and they felt like they needed to fight. They were misfits, and they were ultimately like _her_ .   
  
The only difference was that there were a lot of members of her army that probably couldn’t remember a time before the war. Children that had practically been born into it.   
  
It was hard for her to even remember a time before the war these days. For so long it had been all that her life was made of. In a way, she had built her entire life around warfare. It was as though that life that she’d had before almost didn’t exist. Everything that Chorus had been before was simply _gone._   
  
It was sad. It was a reminder of people that were close to her. It was a reminder of how far the conflict could push people in their mundane lives.   
  
When he'd found out that he was working for her now, Felix had laughed. He'd said that she was cut out for the job, then had thrown a morbid joke on top of it about how he hoped she'd last longer than the others, only to immediately bring up the topic of his payment, as though he thought it might change.   
  
Vanessa had laughed along, even though it had hurt to hear that Felix would question any of it at all. Him thinking that she would last longer than the rest, well-.

That mostly felt like wishful thinking on some level.    
    
But Felix was fighting the war for his own reasons, and he didn't have the same feelings about things that she did. He never would. And yet Vanessa trusted him because Felix was ultimately one of the few people that had the potential to sway the entire fight.   
  
Years before, he'd been worried about his nemesis landing on Chorus. He'd joked about how only someone as awesome as him could have one. As though he were a hero with his very own super villain.   
  
And then he'd told her about Locus, and Vanessa was left with no doubts as to who had killed the generals that had come before her. She'd even seen him in person and had barely made it out alive.   
  
But that battle had been a success, nonetheless.   
  
There would be many more like it, but not everyone would be as fortunate as she was and make it out alive.   
  
Seven months into her time as General, the news came that the Reds and Blues, the soldiers that had taken down the infamous Project Freelancer were there on Chorus, they were running out of supplies, and Felix had concerns that they'd been located by the Feds as well.   
  
Vanessa passed the order down the second that Felix had told her that they were there to get them. Felix had agreed, and soon enough he came back with Reds and Blues.   
  
But not all of them.   
  
Vanessa had been quick to familiarize herself with them, one by one.   
  
And they were far from anything that she'd been expecting.   
  
Private Michael J. Caboose had been the first to recover after whatever had happened at Crash Site Alpha. He'd been tired and beat up, but remained upbeat despite all of it. The man was anything but intelligent, but that didn't matter. The man was a symbol, and having someone like him...   
  
Vanessa couldn't help but think that it was possibly going to be good for morale. After all, if he could float above the horrors around him, why couldn’t anyone else?   
  
The second had been Simmons. He may have been the smartest of the group, but he was perhaps a bit clingy with the others. Worried, even. He did well enough, up until the moment that Vanessa realized that he couldn't talk to women. At all. The sputtering when she’d introduced herself had been evidence enough of that.   
  
Felix had assigned Simmons a squad full of girls as some sort of sick joke. Something about wanting to see the maroon soldier squirm. Vanessa wasn’t sure that it was such a good idea, but Simmons did surprisingly well with the squad regardless.   
  
But where Simmons went, Dexter Grif also went. He was the one that left the worst first impression by a rather significant margin. The second that she'd first realized that Grif was trying to break into the mess hall, she'd needed to put her foot down. But he was smart, all things considered. He just lacked... motivation.   
  
And then there was Lavernius Tucker.   
  
Lavernius Tucker, a man that carried an alien sword and made bad sex jokes at every twist and turn. A man that was convinced that every decision he made for his teammates and squad was the worst. A man that by all means should have made her _angry_ .   
  
Lavernius Tucker was the most motivated of them all, and he was also the most capable. He was a father, he was worried constantly about his friends.   
  
General Kimball saw much more of herself than she would have liked in Tucker, and so it was no real surprise when she realized that he was the one that she wanted to work with the most. He was the one that could help.   
  
But it was hard, when she couldn't get the Reds and Blues to trust her, or Felix, or their army. It especially didn't help when there wasn't anything that she could do to keep her soldiers and Felix from butting heads with them.   
  
Assigning them Lieutenants had been a part of that, along with sending them into training and even into missions.   
  
Vanessa had flown into a rage the second that she'd found out that they had left without permission. They were the only hope that the New Republic had to win, and for them to just _leave-_

The idea that they wouldn't care about Chorus that deeply only served to enrage her.   
  
Felix had been the one to go off and find them.

* * *

Donald D. Doyle became general of the Federal Army on a Tuesday, because there was nobody left in line before him that could do the job.  
  
General Donald Doyle went to Emily Grey's office that very same night requesting a check up with regards to a particularly nasty spike in anxiety, and Emily had been happy to treat him.

He was a good enough general, all things considered. In a lot of ways he was nothing like the men that had been in the position before him. For Emily, that was a good thing above all else. Having someone so compassionate in such a role had the potential to carry them to victory.   
  
At least, it would have been much better if not for the fact that Donald Doyle was still a _coward_ . He still fainted at the sight of his own blood and would do the same should anyone point a weapon at him.     
  
Despite it all, Emily supported him because she believed in him. He was doing his best with what he’d been handed.   
  
Locus was impossible to control, but Emily supposed that had to be expected. Doyle had described him as a dog without a master, and Emily disliked how accurate that ended up feeling.   
  
The situation with the Federal Army remained chaotic for quite some time, though. And then it had changed with Locus coming to Doyle to inform him that he had located the famed Reds and Blues.   
    
Emily mostly found out about it because Doyle had come to her to share the news. Most likely because he was expecting some sort of work for her to do later on.   
  
Almost the second that she left, Emily prepared herself to go through extraordinary lengths to treat whoever came into her operating room next.   
  
Locus would not disappoint.   
  
Doctor Emily Grey's first direct interaction with any Red or Blue was when Agent Washington was unceremoniously dumped on her operating table by Locus who had left without a word. Presumably going off to terrify some poor private that had decided to stay in the mess hall a little too late.   
  
Agent Washington was under her direct care for seventeen hours before he was considered stable enough to be released into more general care. And then he recovered enough that he'd been moved to be with the other Reds and Blues that they'd captured.   
    
Emily kept a close eye on them, if only because she realized very quickly that the Federal Army's resident mercenary had taken an unsettling interest in the Reds and Blues. More specifically, he was fascinated by Agent Washington, and Locus being fascinated by _anything_ was scary in its own right.   
  
And Emily liked the Reds and Blues, really. They were fools, absolute fools, but there was something endearing about them. She liked their foul-mouthed Spanish robot, she liked Donut's dirty jokes at every turn (though she wasn’t sure that he was entirely aware he was making them,) she liked Sarge's excitement over everything and his willingness to fight. She even liked Agent Washington, even if the man absolutely refused any sort of treatment beyond what was necessary.   
    
He was angry, too. She'd realized that the second that he'd begin screaming at Doyle for an explanation of what was going on. Well, perhaps screeching might have been a more accurate description for what Agent Washington had done.     
  
The good thing was that the Reds and Blues had taken their explanation of the Civil War easily enough. They were eager to save their friends.

That eagerness was ultimately a good thing. As soon as they’d been cleared for action, the four of them had been sent into the field to get their friends back for them. Emily had been confident that they’d be able to do the job and they’d return to Outpost 37 safe and sound. Doyle goes back to Armonia, since he is apparently needed there.

That isn’t how it goes. At all. Instead, the Reds and Blues end up being united at Outpost 37, and the next thing Emily knows her friends are being killed all around her. Disintegrated with laser rifles that should never have worked in the first place.

And then things start to fall into place.

Without help, they would have all died.

But they don’t.

With the knowledge of everything that had happened in hand, Emily can’t help but be _furious._

* * *

 

Felix tells her that the Reds and Blues had been killed in action, and it leaves Kimball feeling like she's been shot. The Reds and Blues had been a beacon of hope for the New Republic and now they were just gone. Killed in action.

Felix has a suggestion, though. Both of the armies are hurting, and they could just end the war if they wanted to. All it would take is a good raid on Armonia, and then…

Well, they could win. They could end the senseless war, and then…

Life would go on?

It doesn’t feel right making that decision, but Felix is right. The best thing that she can do for the New Republic is mobilize them for an attack on Armonia, since that is where the Federal Army is gathering for a rally.

Vanessa throws herself into her work.

* * *

Agent Carolina was _truly_ a wonderful woman.   
    
That's one of the things that Emily decided almost immediately upon meeting her, once the blood was washed out of her armor at least. In a lot of ways, Emily couldn't help but see the woman as an experiment of sorts. She was different from the Reds and Blues, and even different from Agent Washington on some level.   
  
She comes bearing weaponry, intelligence, and a little AI swimming around in the back of her head.   
  
And oh, what juicy intelligence she would come with, and it would only get better and better. Emily started to get used to being left behind by the Reds and Blues at Carolina's base of operations. She'd prepare them meals and patch them back up when the time came.   
  
In that time alone, she spent a lot of time thinking about all of that intelligence.   
  
Over the course of her life, Emily had spent a lot of time thinking about all sorts of things. She'd learned about geology, medicine, philosophy, history- everything that anyone involved in academia could think of. In theory she should have been able to put this all together, but it wasn't that simple.   
  
Mostly, she was angry to know that she was watching her planet die for the sake of someone else's profit margins. Imagining that Chorus might one day recover from this was possible, but such a thing wouldn't happen easily.   
  
Not until the Federal Army and New Republic had both come to an understanding of what was happening, and that would require for Locus and Felix to be outed.   
  
And as Carolina had stated, they were going to be kept as far from the generals as possible.   
  
Even then, they were relying on the idea that Felix and Locus wouldn't get desperate and take matters into their own hands. After all, it seemed like countless people had been killed for the sake of making things worse already.   
  
What would be a few more to men like those?   
  
Emily slipped into the room where Carolina had laid down to rest and knocked gently on the wall to get her attention.   
  
"Hello?" She asked, "Are you awake, sweetie?"   
  
"I am." Carolina said. She sounded tired, and probably in pain. Whether or not she was talking to the AI in her pretty little head was up in the air. "What is it?"   
  
"I wanted to check up on your leg!" Emily exclaimed, making her way in a little deeper. "A slice like that so close to the femoral artery won't heal easily."   
  
"I'm fine." Carolina growled.   
  
"Not until you're back to one hundred percent you're not!" Emily made her way into the room and sat down to the freelancer. "Besides, I wanted to talk to you about what you told us earlier!"

  
Carolina’s head snapped up towards Emily, clear interest registering on her face. She looked exhausted, and Emily could only assume that was something that was going to end up being taken care of later. Really, she probably shouldn’t have been bothering Carolina but she really needed to get some of the details from the woman first-hand if she was going to feel right about this.   
  
“You… wanted to talk about that.” Carolina said in a deadpan. She picked her head up up and she had a slightly distant look on her face for just a moment before she focused again. “What did you want to ask about, exactly?”   
  
Emily hesitated, because she had so many questions that choosing a place to start was difficult. And it wasn't as though she was a reporter, although Emily was certain that she could have gotten into that line of work very easily if she wanted. It seemed boring though, not many things to dig into physically.   
  
"You said that Locus and Felix are working for someone by the name of Control?" Emily asked, because that was probably the only real starting point there was. "Do you know for how long they have been working for Control? Or who Control might be?"   
    
Carolina's expression sank over that question. It was clear enough that she understood that Emily was a native Chorusan. She shook her head. "All of them have been working hard to keep themselves from giving up any important information like that." Carolina explained. "I can only guess that they've been doing this for as long as they've been on Chorus, though."      
  
Emily nodded and leaned back in the spot that she'd chosen as her spot. "It's just..." She tried to find the words for the emotion that she so badly needed to name. How was it even possible to explain what she was feeling? She had just found out that her home was a target for genocide, and had watched her friends at Outpost 37 _die_ . "Chorus has never done anything to anyone else. We’ve always sat back and tried to take care of ourselves."      
  
Emily squirmed a little bit in her seat, knotting her hands together in her lap. "We're a small planet in the middle of nowhere. When the UNSC was here, they were happy to use Chorus for our resources, but there was never real conflict there. The UNSC wanted alien tech, and we wanted to be able to govern ourselves. They got what they wanted, and then they moved on." Emily shook her head. "I wish it wasn't true."   
  
"I feel the same way." Carolina sighed. "I shadowed Locus for a little while, but didn't learn much from him directly. Mostly, I was doing my best to figure out supply chains for Freelancer equipment. And I didn't get any clear answers beyond the Hand of Merope."   
  
"And that's just no good!" Emily responded, squirming in her seat again. "You know," Emily began, feeling a little bit far away as she decided to continue forward with what she needed to say. "It's amazing what people will do in the name of money." She crossed one leg over the other, but it wasn't all that comfortable in armor as they were now.   
  
"I know." Carolina replied, her voice going quiet. "People are just too willing to do... terrible things."   
  
Emily nodded, thinking back to a story that she'd read when the Reds and Blues had first come along to Chorus. _Colorful Space Marines Take Down Project Freelancer_ . And that seemed to be accurate on a couple of fronts, but it left Emily with other questions that she needed to ask.   
  
"How..." Emily paused. "Would you say that Project Freelancer was manipulating its agents?"   
  
Carolina looked over at Emily now, even more surprise reading on her expression. Her mouth had even dropped open a little bit before clamping back shut. Carolina closed her eyes and let out a slow, calm breath.   
  
"Project Freelancer did terrible things to everyone involved." Carolina finally said, keeping her voice distant and her expression as detached as possible. "Not just to the agents, but to Sim Troopers, pilots, the AI. Even the janitors didn’t make it out in one piece."   
  
"And how have you and Agent Washington dealt with that?" Emily asked. "Being manipulated like that. I can't speak for how things are with the New Republic, but with the Federal Army there was some trust in Locus. As scary and... reclusive as he was." She hesitated. "And now that it's looking like we've been strung along into a war for the sake of profits, I don't know how Chorus is going to be able to recover."   
  
Realizing that she was getting a little too melancholy for her own likings, Emily decided to pick it back up. "I mean, the good thing is that there will always be work out there for me. Psychoanalysis, history, medicine. But I fear for how the others are feeling."   
  
"I do too." Carolina sighed. "I'm worried about the guys too, but-" She paused, looking to the door and staring at it like she was going to be opening any moment. "They always manage to get through these things. At least, that's what I've been told."   
  
"You don't know first hand?"   
  
"I don't," Carolina admitted, and Emily felt a slight pang of wonder. "I haven't been with them as long as I should have, and I haven't always been good to them."   
  
"But you can do better?"   
    
"But I can do better." Carolina agreed. She leaned back in her bunk and let her eyes slip closed as she tried to make herself a little bit more comfortable. "And I'm trying to."   
  
Emily nodded. "I think that helping with this war could be a good start."   
  
"I think so too." Carolina said, smiling. "Can I rest now, doctor?"   
  
"Oh, of course!" Emily chirped, getting up and stretching. "I'll leave you. But you better not be putting too much strain on that leg of yours!"   
  
"Thank you, Doctor Grey." Carolina responded in an annoyed sort of deadpan.   
  
Emily just took it as the sign that she should go, and slipped out the door.

* * *

The two armies of Chorus mobilize for Armonia, ready for a final battle. Every part is in place, they’re ready to fight, and-

Vanessa Kimball finds herself face to face, arguing with Doyle over how the two armies had broken the planet as they had. But there are problems, when both of them start to realize that the stories they’d been given didn’t match up or make any sense. It’s like they’d been communicated different stories about what had happened to the Reds and Blues entirely.

The battle starts, and then it stops as the radio waves are overflooded with a transmission, straight from Tucker’s helmet. Tucker, who is apparently alive and well. Tucker, who is fighting _Felix,_ who was supposed to be handling an outside threat.

Felix, who has apparently been playing the New Republic since day one. Felix, who has apparently been helping Locus. Felix, who was dragging out a battle for the sake of-

Money. Felix, who has always been doing things for money, has been driving her people to _kill each other_ for the sake of lining his own pockets.

Vanessa is sick.

She isn’t the only one. She and Doyle order an immediate ceasefire. They collect their wounded and Armonia becomes a shared base of operations for both armies, but-

Vanessa doesn’t know what to do with herself, really. She feels like the entire fabric of the universe has been cut and torn around her. It’s been ripped to shreds, and Vanessa is _heartbroken._

After all, she and Felix had been _friends._ At least that was what she’d been lead to believe.

It was a betrayal unlike anything that she could have ever imagined. She'd never imagined that she would find herself in a situation where Felix would be her enemy for any reason. He was a lot of things, crass, callous, foul-mouthed and kind of an awful person all around.   
  
But he'd also been a friend.  Someone that she had put a lot of trust in, someone that had given her advice time and time again. He's acted as a mentor of sort to countless soldiers, even to Vanessa herself.   
  
For all those years, Kimball had trusted him with _everything_ . She’d shared her meals with him, they’d stand outside of base in the mornings and talk. He’d cheer her up with jokes on the particularly bad days.   
  
It leaves her wondering how much of what Felix had told her was a lie. Or rather, what wasn’t a lie about it all.   
Obviously Locus being his 'nemesis' was a lie. There's more than enough evidence of that.   
  
But what about the times that he'd put faith in her? What about the times that he'd tell her that she was the best for her position? Or the times that he'd given her advice before going into the field?   
  
How many of those times had she been strung along without ever even _suspecting_ it?   
  
Eventually, and Kimball isn't quite sure how she manages it, she slips away and down to the algae lake. She needs to clear her mind and do whatever she can to process what is happening around her.   
  
Kimball takes a seat there, in the same place that she had many years before when Felix had first talked to her.   
  
She's about to open her logs so that she can record a new one and just vent to someone that won't talk back. The fact that she would still want to use something that Felix had given her hurts, but...   
  
Felix.   
  
Felix had told her to record logs, and Kimball knew for a fact that he had offered that same advice to countless others. It makes a suspicion rise in her that she really doesn't want to have to face.   
  
Kimball ignores the want to record a log. She pulls of her helmet and makes a beeline for equipment, because if she's right, it will explain _a lot_ .   
  
Like how someone was able to keep a war going on between two sides for so long artificially.   
  
Kimball waits for hours, and she's surprised when Tucker sits to join her and just talk. He's hurting too, Vanessa knew. He'd put a lot of trust in Felix, and he's worried that he failed his men just the same as she does.   
  
She doesn't have the heart to ask if Felix had ever told Tucker to record a log, if only because she had been the first to offer Tucker that sliver of advice.   
  
What had she done?   
  
The news comes through, though.   
  
It was apparent that there was a certain backdoor into the storage on Vanessa’s helmet, probably created on one of those occasions where Felix had offered to bring her helmet back to processing for a day. And because of that, Vanessa could only imagine that he'd been listening in on her thoughts for _years_ . Like a frustrating brother reading a diary, meaning to use all of that information later on to pick his sister apart.   
  
Kimball didn't like any of it. She even made an effort not to make that knowledge known. For her to have been intruded on was enough. While the others probably deserved to know, Vanessa didn't know that she had the heart for it.   
  
The facts were just there, laid out. The New Republic was suffering, and Felix had left behind a more serious blow than any Federal victory had. It wasn't like the war, it was deeply, deeply personal.   
  
Before Kimball even knew it, she was lobbying for her soldiers to get the same treatment as the Federal soldiers were. It was a matter of food, and beds, and bullets. It was a matter of letting them stay separate from those who had once shot at them while also trying to make them work together.   
  
Kimball wasn't sure that she was really ready to work together. Not when these were the people that had fought for terrible things for so many years. Not when these were oppressors, when they were _corrupt_ .   
  
No matter what, Kimball was never quite able to reconcile some of the things that rang in her mind. She was being forced to work closely with a fool and a coward. The Reds and Blues were still there, but they only offered so much help.   
  
It was going to be a matter of time before they heard from Locus and Felix again, and Vanessa wasn't sure how soon that would be.   
  
All that she could be sure of was that when the time came, they needed to be ready for bloodshed, or whatever else may come.


	4. Chapter 4

The news of Locus and Felix's betrayals spreads like wildfire. It's enough to throw both armies into a further state of anger than they have been in a _very_ long time. But this time, instead of going after each other, they're going after a common enemy.   
  
And in a way, it is a great uniting thing. The two armies are finally working together on something… to a degree.   
  
The sad truth of the matter is that Emily never could have really been prepared for what she would learn once the two armies were together. In the middle of a war, it had somehow never occurred to Emily just how dire things were for the New Republic. A part of her had been sure that they would at least have some resources to their names beyond weaponry and food.   
  
She hadn't been prepared to see so many soldiers needing new limbs. Needing blood. Needing psychiatric care. Somehow, despite everything, that was something that Emily hadn't quite been prepared for. It made sense, but for the situation to be that dire…

She’d thought that both sides had been in better shape.   
  
And truth be told, if it wasn't for her own ideas of what it meant to be a doctor, Emily was sure that she wouldn't have even begun to consider helping the rebel soldiers. After all, they had been the cause for so many losses over the years, so many of Emily's _friends_ had been lost and it was because of them.   
  
"Please, Doctor Grey-" Vanessa Kimball pleads with her. Every time that Emily sees the woman's visor out of the corner of her eye, Emily isn't sure how to feel. She feels like she's spent so much time hunting the blue down on battlefields that to see it somewhere like an office in a decidedly neutral setting is just strange. It makes sense that someone would come for her help eventually, but that doesn't make it very good. "We need you."   
  
Emily sighs. "I'm willing to help your soldiers," Emily begins. "But I also need for you to understand that many of your soldiers aren't going to trust me." Emily gestures towards her own helmet, like that alone would be enough to explain everything. "And for the same reason, I doubt that Federal soldiers will be trusting your forces or medics so easily."   
  
"I know." General Kimball sighs. "It's just that we can't do much for them, and with things the way that they are..." Her voice trails off. "We were relying on Felix to be able to get resources for our army. That included medicine, and now that he's gone..."   
  
Emily pauses and turns to face Kimball. She can't quite imagine what the woman looked like on the other side of her helmet. Perhaps the least that she could do then was just offer something to try and help. To comfort. It was just a matter of bedside manner, after all.   
  
"We were in the same situation." Emily chirps. "Locus made sure that we had better and better weaponry when he could. Looking back on it now, I suppose that we should have questioned that more, but that wasn't something that only the New Republic was dealing with."   
  
Kimball startles. Her head snaps up so that she can stare at Emily, and Emily just decides to keep on going with her explanation. "Now that the two armies are together, things will be a little easier, but I'm afraid that things will be dire for some time."   
  
"But you will treat my men?"

  
  
Emily nods. "I don't see the point in letting them bleed out or lie around with the pretty little limbs off." She smiles a little too widely behind her helmet. Emily can't exactly act like she isn't aware of the fact that she was taking it a little too cheerily, but she also can't quite break out of that. Too much time training herself to be happy is a hard habit to break. "But when there are soldiers that refuse my help, you're going to need to be willing to help to convince them to let me put them back together."   
  
Kimball hesitates. She pauses, taking a half-step away from Emily. She looks back over her shoulder like she's looking for something behind her then sighs. "I'll help." She says finally. "Thank you, Doctor Grey. I believe that both armies need you."   
  
"Oh, General Kimball," Grey responds, still too chipper. "Doctors are _always_ in high demand."   
  
And somehow that is the thing that stops the conversation and shocks General Kimball quiet. Kimball just nods and turns to head out, leaving Emily behind to try and figure out how she is going to deal with a sudden doubling of hospital occupancy and staff.   
  
It reminds her of how Armonia General Hospital was before the war, before the people had begun dying off en masse.   
  
Emily goes to work.

* * *

The truth of the matter is that Vanessa is just _frustrated_ with everything that is going on. The Reds and Blues are doing their best to help them around the bases. Whether or not Felix and Locus were still on Chorus was a question that nobody really had an answer for.

She was doing her best to manage with the situation. Dealing with the everlasting sting of Felix’s betrayal was something that wasn’t coming easily.

Mostly, Vanessa was _exhausted._ The two armies had managed to unite, but it felt like it was coming at a cost. While it was true that the Feds had agreed that the New Republic could move into Armonia properly, that didn’t ease the tension.

Because no matter what, she and Doyle were constantly fighting. They were being pushed into the same spaces. Their soldiers weren’t getting along. The only area where there seemed to be any sort of harmony seemed to be in the medical wings, and even then it was weak.

They were losing people. If the mercenaries came back, then it was likely that they weren’t going to be able to handle them. It was entirely too likely that the war that they were leading against Charon Industries would end with their decimation.

“Oh!” Doyle came into their shared office, seeming tired himself. “Vanessa Kimball. What are you doing here?”

“Working.” Vanessa growled back, feeling exhausted. She turned in her seat to face the man properly. “But I suppose that won’t be the case for much longer now that you’re here.”

“I’m… sorry.” Doyle replied quietly. “Captain Grif is still requesting access to the mess hall and a second serving of rations.”

“He won’t stop.” Vanessa replied, thinking back to the time that the man had spent with the New Republic. “I’ve told men to keep him out if possible, but I don’t think that your men will listen to me.”

Doyle gives her a strange, wavering look once he’s gotten to take off his helmet and allow himself to relax a little bit. “I’ll be sure to pass the message along.” He said calmly, and Vanessa felt some small relief because it was the first time that if felt like they’d agreed on anything.

There was a moment of quiet before Doyle was speaking up again. “I believe that Agent Washington reported an issue in the training grounds earlier.” He began to explain, keeping his eyes functionally glued to the ceiling above the two of them. “Something about a shortage of practice guns.”

Vanessa snapped her head up because _that_ was something that nobody had told her about. “What do you mean there’s a shortage of training guns?”

“What I mean is that there aren’t enough.” Doyle says it again, and it only serves to get on Vanessa’s nerves. “If we could allocate-”

“No.” Vanessa cut him off. “If you are considering suggesting live ammunition for training, you are going to be sorely disappointed.”

Doyle let out a sigh and walked over to his desk. He took something off of it before turning away from Vanessa again. “I suppose that I’ll have to inform the men.” He sighed. “We need to find solutions though, Vanessa. And soon.”

He left the room, and only once she was alone did Kimball allow herself to mutter an _‘I know.’_

* * *

The moment that she’d been requested to go on a trip to survey the alien temples, Emily had been beyond _ecstatic_ with the news. It was a chance for her to get away from her workplace, because really, she could only deal with doing so many amputations in a day before it started to wear on her.

Field research with the Reds and Blues seemed like the perfect sort of reprieve. Almost the exact kind of vacation that she’d been looking for.

She’d prepared her things for the trip the same way that she normally would have. The fact that she was going to have someone there to help carry her things was nice, even if the group that she was being sent with couldn’t exactly be praised with regards to their attention spans.

Nobody could have planned for what had actually ended up happening, or what it meant in the long run. Tucker wandering off, turning on the temple, _exploding_ the modified alien equipment that they did have while giving them massive amounts of the same equipment that wouldn’t work. It wasn’t much, but it was a good head start.

Reporting back to the generals and the rest of the Reds and Blues goes surprisingly smoothly. If anything, it just opens the door for them to move forward. Emily can’t help feeling like she’s managed to aid in turning the tides of the new war. At the very least, she’s got a whole lot of new information to use and new phenomena to research.

She gets dragged along following the coordinates they’d found at the Temple, and the next thing she knows Emily is decoding alien texts as the various members of the Reds and Blues are going through an alien portal.

Whatever is happening through the portal is strange and hard to make much sense of. It’s exciting, that much is true at the very least. Not as exciting as the presence of the alien AI that Caboose had decided to name Santa, but it’s exciting.

And troubling.

Emily ends up spending a lot of time with the people that had chosen to go through. They need help, some sort of psychotherapy to help calm their troubled minds in such a difficult time. She can offer it, when they have the time. With a new lead on how they should move forward, they’re all too busy.

Mostly, it feels like time is passing by much faster than it should have.

But things can’t go well, because it’s war and that’s how things are. They learn that they’d been spied on, and if not for her plan and Agent Carolina’s shield…

Well, it’s a foregone conclusion, what would have happened.

The important thing is that they’re racing the mercenaries and their men for a key. Emily’s not sure if they’ll find it, but it’s a good start.

* * *

 

Emily’s news had been enough to spur them to action. Vanessa hadn’t exactly been _happy_ about the plans that had been made. While the away team was going to stay out in the field trying to make sense of what they’d seen, she was going to be leaving with a group so that they could do an assault on Crash Site Alpha.

Mostly, Vanessa wasn’t pleased with the prospect of leaving Armonia nearly unguarded.

Also, she wasn’t sure of what to think of the news that the away team had somehow found Santa. Whatever _that_ was supposed to mean.

But, as it stood the role that the assault would play was important enough that they should move forward in their assault. If they could just free up the radio waves, they could get help, and then Chorus would have some help in the war against Charon.

They walk into the middle of an ambush. The mercenaries had known that they were coming, and they lost so many people as a result. Nobody had even considered that the mercenaries might have backup.

Felix had known that they were coming, and that, _that_ was enough to make Vanessa’s blood boil. He’d used the knowledge of how she acted for the sake of ruining them. It was something that couldn’t be handled.

Vanessa hadn’t been happy when they’d decided to leave the capital mostly unprotected originally, but when things were as bad as they were…

She made the call back to Doyle in a near panic. She practically begged for him to send her reinforcements and leave Armonia even more open for attack. Before the call could even begin to be confirmed and anyone could be sent her way, Carolina was there requesting the very same reinforcements.

Because the mercenaries had found a way to kill every living being on Chorus.

It feels like a miracle when they figure out a way for them to get out of Crash Site Alpha.

_It’s even more of a miracle when it_ works.

* * *

 

Everyone returned to Armonia, and while things seemed like they were doing better, it was more tense than ever. Doyle had the sword, and they were doing their best to keep him protected (Emily had spent several hours patting his back when he’d needed a shoulder to cry into. The ordeal was perhaps more stressful to him than it was to anyone else on Chorus.)

Vanessa would come to Emily looking for help, and when it happened Emily wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to do. It mostly just felt like Vanessa was looking for a chance to vent to someone that understood.

Kimball sits down on the table in one of the examination rooms and pulls of her helmet, setting it down at her side. She’s bleeding, and she’s definitely injured. A simple bullet wound to the arm that it looked like Vanessa had tried her best to patch up with biofoam on the way back to Armonia.   
  
The good thing about that sort of injury was that it was routine to treat. Routine was good at that point.   
  
“So.” Emily starts calmly, wiping some of the blood away from the injury. "So why don't you tell me about what happened?"   
  
"It was a trap." Kimball explains, her voice hard and frustration running through her entire body. "They were ready for us, and when we got there we just got… ambushed." Her brown hair is ruffled, and Kimball looks completely exhausted. Emily feels some sympathy for her for that. She knows that Doyle is feeling just as exhausted.   
  
Emily nods along, reaching for a scalpel and forceps so that she can start on extracting the bullet. "Did you manage to take down the radio jammers?”   
  
"No, we didn’t. There’s the Temple of Communication, but-" Kimball answered finally, staring off to the other side of the room. She's schooling her expressions, Emily realizes. She knows fully well that this should have been seriously painful. Kimball's barely reacting to it. “But Felix has the key. Even if it won’t work with Doyle alive, that doesn't mean that we should be resting."   
  
"Because you think that they will come for him?"   
  
Kimball nods slowly, and she looks a little bit like she's in disbelief. "If I know Felix as well as I thought I did..." Her voice trails off, and there's that faraway look on her face. As long as things were as they were going, this was going to be hard.   
  
On some level, Emily considers the Federal Army lucky with regards to Locus. He'd never made an effort to bond with the soldiers. He never shared meals with them, he never made himself available for anything other than the battlefield and the occasional training session when a spare pair of hands had been needed (and even then, he mostly played drill sergeant.) The only one that Locus might have been close to was Doyle, but Doyle also wanted to trust _everyone_ . And even then, calling what Doyle and Locus were ‘close’ seemed… generous, to say the least.   
  
The situation was absolutely nothing like what the New Republic had with Felix, as Emily understood it. Felix had made himself out to be a friend, affable and friendly. He hadn't cared about bonding with the others.   
  
Emily pauses. "I don't know whether or not you did," she says quietly. "But why are you so concerned?"   
  
"I'm concerned because the Felix that I know won't take an attack of something that is his lying down." Kimball began to explain. "He holds grudges and is an angry person. If I'm right..."   
  
"Then it's only a matter of time before they come looking to take Doyle out of the picture?” Grey asks as she finally removes the bullet from Kimball's arm. She sets it down on a soft paper towel at her side, and turns so that she can at least start on suturing the injury shut. "I imagine that you’ll be preparing for an attack?"   
  
Kimball nods slowly. "We will be." Vanessa confirms, keeping her voice rather steady as she goes. “But if they come for Armonia there may not be much that we can do. And even then, I have to trust that Doyle will listen to me when we make the plans for how to protect Armonia”   
  
And that surprises Emily. She had gotten the feeling that Kimball didn't like Doyle for some reason, and Emily could only assume that it had to do with them being on different sides of the fight. Now that they were technically working together, Emily had been thinking that it would lessen in theory.   
  
Apparently not.   
  
"Doyle is looking to protect his people too." Emily said finally. "And I can tell you that he wants to work together, because Chorus is in danger. All of Chorus."   
  
"Then why does he never listen to me about what we should do?" Kimball growls, and she sounds deeply frustrated. For a moment, it dawns on Emily that it's possible that Kimball hasn't been resting well. That would make sense, but she will be sure to bring it up later when it feels more appropriate. "I'm looking for the best for Chorus too. But now he’s jeopardized the whole thing by giving the sword to Felix."   
  
"I'd recommend trying to learn to compromise!" Emily chirps, pushing the needle into Kimball's arm for the first time. Kimball tenses considerably, and Emily notices that the woman is clenching her teeth. "You know that the body can't work if the muscles and the skeleton don't play nice with each other."   
  
Kimball nods, and she seems like she's almost making an effort to hold her breath.

  
She isn’t quite sure as to why it feels that way.   
  
“I’m doing my best!” Vanessa says. “But thinking that anyone is going to be able to just forget that we’ve been at war for years is just wrong.”   
  
“I know.” Doctor Grey responded. “But if they're going to be able to learn to get along, then they're going to need for you and Doyle to get along!" She squirmed a little bit in her seat and made herself a little more comfortable. "Keeping things separate like this aren't going to do anyone any good."   
  
"I'm trying to compromise!" Vanessa snapped back at Emily. "But that's very hard when he's not willing to compromise either."   
  
And just like that, Doctor Grey was cocking her head to the side in an attempt to figure out what Vanessa meant. It almost made Vanessa think that she needed to shrink back a little bit. It just served as a reminder that Vanessa probably needed to do something to explain herself.   
  
"We can't agree on anything." She finally explained herself. "We can agree to ration food, but we can't ration bullets. We can agree to keep the two armies together, but we can't agree on how to split the space." Vanessa toyed with a pen between her fingers. "I think that medical and food are the only things we have agreed on."   
  
Doctor Grey cocked her head to the side just slightly.

“Have you agreed on them?”

Vanessa sighs. “No.” She mumbles. “Not really.”

Emily sighs, thinking back to a strange proposition that she’d been given earlier from the new purple sim trooper. She levels her gaze on Vanessa before allowing herself to speak up. “I was asked if I’d be willing to help the Reds and Blues with something earlier.” She begins to explain. “But I need for you and Doyle to agree to it first.”

Vanessa stares at her. “What do you mean?”

“They want to have a counseling session.” Emily explains calmly. “To try and clear the air between you and general Doyle. I’ve been asked to help, but we can’t do that if you don’t say yes to helping.”

Vanessa is quiet, looking down at her hands like she thinks that she’ll find the answer for what to do or say sitting right there.

There’s a long silence that stretches on for far too long as Emily bandages Kimball’s arm.

Finally, she speaks.

“I’ll do it.” Vanessa says calmly. “I don’t want to, and I don’t know that anything will come of it,but I’ll do it. For Chorus.”

Emily smiles. “That’s as good as a yes I’m going to get, isn’t it sweetie?”

Kimball laughs. It feels like it’s been a long time since anyone had last laughed on Chorus that wasn’t named Felix.

* * *

 

For as long as she could remember, Armonia had always stood strong. It had always been the shining jewel of Chorus, something that someone had always been able to look up to.   
  
Armonia was crumbled into ruin.   
  
Donald Doyle was dead.

Barely even a week after she and Doyle had their counselling session and had been clearing the air between them properly, Doyle was _dead._

Vanessa couldn’t stop blaming herself for it. Surely, they could have saved him. If one thing had gone right, if they’d had more time, _if if if_ \-   
  
The United Army was even more divided than ever, and Kimball just didn't know what to do. She wished that there was some way to make it easier. She wished that there was some way to convince everyone that the sacrifice that Doyle had made had been the right one. The best thing. For the greater good.   
  
Kimball only found that talking had gotten to be hard. Eating had been even harder. Mostly, she tucked herself out of sight and hoped that the people around her would be kind enough to leave her alone.   
  
A knock on the door to the small room that was now her office, and god, it shouldn't have been that way. Before she and Doyle had been more or less sharing the space, and now that she was gone...   
  
Before Kimball never could have even begin to imagine that she would miss Doyle. Despite everything, he was kind. And he'd looked up to her, at least in some way.   
    
And now he was dead.   
  
Kimball turned to the door. It was still closed, and her mouth was dry.   
  
"Who is it?" She asked, blinking and trying not to let her exhaustion show too badly with just her voice alone.   
  
"It's Doctor Grey, General Kimball." The voice called through the door. "I understand if you don't want to speak yet, but I wanted to be able to check in on you."   
  
Kimball hesitated, and sighed. "Come in." She mumbled, facing back towards her desk. It was piled high with information, all things that she'd had to scrounge off of Doyle's desk. Many of it was work that she'd had on her own desk already. The important thing was that Doyle's paperwork had his notes scrawled down in the margins.   
  
The door opened, and Doctor Grey came in, true to form. With her, she was carrying a small tray with food, water, and a few other things on it. She crossed the room and set it down in front of Kimball. "I figured that you might need some of this."   
  
Kimball eyed the tray. It was simple, food that probably had just come out of a ration package because that was all they had now that Armonia was gone.   
  
"Thank you." She finally said, feeling exhausted. "Is that all?"   
  
"Oh, of course not sweetie!" Emily replied. "I'm just trying to make sure that you're still standing."   
    
Kimball nodded slowly, staring off into space like there was something wrong. Or like it might magically be able to make things better. "Thank you, Doctor Grey." She said, keeping her voice down. "Although I suspect this is all you're here for."   
    
"Oh, of course not." Doctor Grey said. "I'm a doctor. This has been traumatic for everyone involved, and-"   
  
"And you want to know that I'm going to be okay?"   
    
"That's putting it loosely, but yes!" Emily replied. She looked to the spare seat, and Kimball just nodded to give Emily permission to take it. Emily took the seat and made herself comfortable. "How have you been feeling since the explosion?"

Kimball hesitated, because there were so many feelings that she needed to sort through to answer the Doctor's question. It wasn't as though Armonia hadn't fallen, or a man that she'd been at odds with constantly had been killed there.   
    
None of it was going to be easy, and Kimball knew that.   
  
It didn't make it any easier.   
  
"I've been..." Kimball tried to start, but stopped when she realized that she wasn't saying what she wanted to. "It's been hard." She corrected.   
  
"And that has to be expected." Grey supplies, crossing one leg over the other. It almost looked like she should have a clipboard or something balancing on her knee. A pen in her hand. That at least would make this feel more like a proper, professional meeting. Not...   
  
"I know." Kimball says, deciding that she doesn't want to get swept up in that thought. "It's a lot to get used to."   
  
"I know the feeling." Emily says, her voice going a little too quiet. "It could have been much worse, and we were lucky to be able to get the evacuation order when we did, but there were still a lot of people lost." Emily goes even quieter.   
  
Actually, she picks her head up and looks off to the side like there's something on her mind. If there was a window in the room, Vanessa was sure that Emily would have been staring out of it. But the room didn't have a window. It was just a safe room that had been selected because it could keep leadership safe.   
  
"I miss him too." Doctor Grey said, her voice distant. Like she was trying to keep it from taking a too personal tone. "I know that the two of you were fighting."   
  
"We were." Vanessa admitted, feeling a distant spike of guilt. It only made sense that this was going to be difficult for everyone involved. She was sure that Emily had known Doyle for years. Possible had even gone into training together. Somehow it hadn't really occurred to her in the past. "We were trying to get better but..."   
  
"Oh, I know." Grey said. "It's hard, isn't it?"   
  
"What?"   
  
"Seeing the enemy as a friend all of a sudden." Emily responded casually. "I mean, I'm a doctor and people are people. We're all the same on the inside. At the end of the day, everyone needs blood."   
  
Surprisingly, Kimball could understand that analogy, as strange as it was.   
  
At the end of the day, they were all Chorusan, and they were all hemorrhaging. Armonia was just yet another nicked wound.   
  
"Did he love Chorus?" Kimball asks, because it is one of those things that is bothering her. "Doyle, I mean."   
  
"Of course he loved Chorus." Emily said, shifting about in her seat in an attempt to make herself more comfortable. "He told me once that he was raised in Armonia. He'd never been able to imagine a life like he was living. Chorus was his home. He never asked for the war."   
  
Kimball nodded slowly. "And he didn't have a problem with the side that he chose?" She knew that the issue of the divided armies was very much something that she needed to get away from, but she wanted to know.   
  
Really, she just wanted to know him a little better. Maybe if she could learn about Donald Doyle, she'd be able to lead a better planet than the one he'd died for.   
  
And Emily looked at her with a soft sympathetic look on her face. She was trying to make sense of this the same way. Finally, Emily let out a quiet sigh.   
  
"He didn't like the methods your army chose." Emily finally said, like she was doing her best to distance herself. "But he believed in you, General Kimball. And I think that you can be the leader that our people needs."   
  
And in another world, that might have been enough to make Vanessa feel a little bit more confident about this. Maybe in another world she would be able to think about this without concentrating on that finally message that Doyle had given.   
  
"Chorus needs people like you too, Doctor Grey." Vanessa said, because it was what felt like ti was the most appropriate to say. "After the war, we're going to need doctors and smart people."   
  
"Chorus will always need people like me." Emily said, sighing. "But I'm not some sort of leader, sweetie. I'm here to make sure that Chorus still has a population. That won't do us any good if we can't be sure there will still be a Chorus."   
  
Her voice went all quiet again, and Grey actually reached out for her. She placed a gentle hand on Kimball's and all that Vanessa could think was that it was warm. It was comforting in a way that she was sure she'd never be able to experience once the war was over with. 

* * *

Chorus makes its final stand.

People are killed.

They win.

Felix is dead. Locus is missing.

Vanessa Kimball stands alone as the only leader left on Chorus.

The Chorusan Civil War and the war against Charon Industries are over.

Help comes for them.

It feels bittersweet.


	5. Chapter 5

It hadn't taken long for the remaining people of Chorus to begin doing their best to account for their countless losses. People were submitting lists of names, fallen soldiers and dead civilians that had fallen. Families, friends, co-workers- everyone that could be thought of that hadn’t survived was submitted and added to a list.  
  
The Doyle Project was an ambitious one. It had been conceived as a way for them to better memorialize everything that had happened during the Chorusan Civil War. There were people going over military dossiers and census information.  
  
Vanessa and Emily had both been on the committee to propose the project. The intentions had been wholesome enough, and so everyone that was left seemed to be willing enough to help. Down the line, there were other things that they wanted to do.  
  
Most importantly, the hospital in Armonia was going to need to be rebuilt.  
  
"We have six more boxes of records to go through!" Emily announced as she stepped into the room where Vanessa was sitting. It was late, most of the others that had been on the committee had already decided to go home for the night. Years of practicing medicine in the middle of a war had left Emily better attuned to night hours to begin with, and Vanessa was up to something, though Emily didn't know what.  
  
"That's good." Vanessa sighed, picking her head up and looking up at Emily with tired eyes. "Anything of interest?"  
  
"Not particularly." Emily said, setting the first box down on the edge of the desk. "Unless you are _very_ invested in the employment records of Armonia Sanitation Services." The fact of the matter was that Emily didn't particularly mind that work, she even found it to be rather important. Regardless, she doubted that anyone else would feel the same way.  
  
"It's something." Vanessa sighed, setting her pen down at her side. "Thank you for wanting to help with this."  
  
"Why wouldn't I want to help?" Emily asked. "I can't even imagine how many of these people I tried to help during the war. The right thing to do is make sure that they aren't just forgotten!"  
  
Vanessa nodded, and with all of her exhaustion Emily couldn't quite make it seem more interesting. At the very least, she was doubting that she would find some true enthusiasm out of Vanessa this late.  
  
Emily took the seat on the other side of the desk. "Do you realize that this is going to be the greatest effort in public recordkeeping that Chorus has ever seen?" She asked, knowing that she was beginning to babble a little bit. "Possibly even bigger than anything else in the outer colonies. I’m excited to be a part of it."  
  
"I'm just glad to have such good help for it." Vanessa said, leaning back in her seat. She seemed to relax into it, and Emily couldn't help but think that seeing Vanessa out of armor was strange. After so many years of fighting in the war, having it just be over was strange. It felt a little bit like some of the background noise of their lives had gone silent.  
  
And every day, it only got quieter and quieter and quieter.  
  
Emily could barely even remember what things were like before the war, these days. Maybe they'd always been at war and she'd just never realized it because of how suddenly it had come. At the very least, the seeds for that conflict had been there for a very long time before they had ever begun to sprout.  
  
"I was thinking that we should get coffee." Emily stated, squirming in her seat just a little bit as she always would. There was a certain sort of excitement that ran through her body that she was never able to forget about. "After all, it feels like you and I haven't actually talked in so long!"  
  
Vanessa groaned and leaned forward, letting herself stretch out across the desk just slightly. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"  
  
"Yes, I was just saying that!"  
  
"Coffee sounds good, then," Vanessa sighed. Emily nodded, her mind already racing with all of the possibilities for where or how they could get coffee at such a late hour. It wasn't as though 24 hour shops were much of a staple these days, regardless of how much people might have wanted them, or how nice they would have been.  
  
Emily made a fast decision and got up, offering Vanessa her hand.  
  
Vanessa reached out and took it before bringing herself up to her feet. Just like that the two of them were walking out and on the way back to the old barrack that was currently serving as an apartment building of sorts while people tried to do their best to rebuild the city. Emily and Vanessa had both made the decision to stay in them for the time being.  
  
But they got there, slipped down to the kitchen, and Emily started on fixing two mugs of coffee. While they brewed, she turned so that she could face Vanessa head on.  
  
"So!" She started, making herself all the more comfortable there. "Why don't you tell me what you're up to these days when you aren't trying to govern a planet?"  
  
Vanessa stared up at her and sighed. "I've been thinking that Chorus needs a chance to choose its new leadership." Vanessa said. Emily felt a slight pang of something terrible over the fact that Vanessa was thinking about work when they were trying to relax. Although, she couldn't exactly pretend like she didn't understand where Vanessa was coming from.  
  
Emily rarely didn't have work on her mind in some way these days.  
  
"What do you mean?" Emily asked. "It isn't as though we've been left with a stable way to manage ourselves."  
  
"And with the UNSC's attention back on Chorus-"  
  
"Then we should get to making those sorts of decisions soon!" Emily responds. "After all, if we're going to be able to do anything important, then we need that power."  
  
"I'm thinking of running for president." Vanessa finally explained herself, her words coming out in a way that was almost stunted. "I don't know that people would want to vote for a president, but-"  
  
"But why wouldn't they?" Emily asked, cocking her head to the side. "And who would even want to run against you?"  
  
"I don't know," Vanessa let out a quiet sort of laugh. "I don't even know that there's anyone left that could."  
  
Emily nodded, blinking and looking up to the sky. "The thing is, I don't think that we'll be able to find out unless you go ahead and run!"  
  
"I'll have to propose an election first."  
  
"And I will support you entirely." Emily smiled across to Kimball. "If there's anyone that's capable of leading us, I think that it's you. Besides, it isn't like you wouldn't have some-"  
  
Emily paused, her eyes flicking up to the security camera and she smiled, raising a hand to wave at it playfully. She doubted that Santa was swimming around in its hardware, but it was worth a try.  
  
"You think that Santa would help?" Vanessa asked. There was a quiet beeping sound that went off behind Emily. "With the presidency?"  
  
"Maybe not that specifically." Emily said, turning to grab two empty drinking mugs before filling them both up and adding nothing to them. She knew for a fact that after years at war with things like creamer and good sugar unavailable to them, she and Vanessa both preferred their coffees black. "I think that he'd be happy to help rebuild Chorus though. I mean, after all, he does have access to all sorts of fun alien technology that has been left behind for us!"  
  
Vanessa laughed, leaning back in her seat slightly. "I suppose that you're right." Her voice trailed off for a moment, and there was this look on her face that Emily didn't quite know how to read. "They did leave us quite a bit."  
  
"And so we should use Santa to the best of our abilities!" Emily chirped, taking the first sip of her drink. "For the best of the people of Chorus, whether they know that he's here or not."  
  
"Right." Vanessa said, smiling softly down into her coffee. "For Chorus." She hesitated for a long moment before looking up at Emily. Their eyes met and there was a long pause before Vanessa spoke again. "What are you planning to do once the project is over?"  
  
And it was a good question. It was an exceptionally good question, one that Emily really knew she had a good answer for. She supposed that her life was going to revolve around the health of the people of Chorus in some way, but many of those things that she would need to do were going to have to come down the line, right?  
  
Emily couldn't be too sure, when things were still as messy and unclear as they were.  
  
"I haven't decided yet." She finally said. "I figured that once the new hospital is built, then I would start to take up residence there. What else I was going to do-”

Emily paused, finding herself at a slight loss for words because at the end of the day all that she really wanted to do now that the war was over was make sure that it wouldn't happen again. Chorus was always going to need its doctors, but now she was more than that. She was a historian, she was a veteran of a civil war. She was sure that she was inevitably going to find herself acting as a teacher because that was just what Chorus was going to need all too soon.  
  
After all, there were going to be a lot of soldiers looking for ways to live as civilians now that it was over with. Emily had a sneaking suspicion that Chorus' law enforcement force was going to be a very popular career choice for many of the people of Chorus that were left. But they were all still so young, and there was that feeling that left Emily feeling almost like a grandmother.  
  
She and Vanessa were going to be members of the older generation, doing their best to pass their knowledge on to the younger one.  
  
"That's all that I was thinking," Emily finally admitted. "Once the hospital is built, I'm going to be needed. Maybe I'll end up teaching new doctors, or maybe I'll find myself acting in a couple of different fields. I think that it might just be a little too early to really say for sure." She paused for a moment, sipping her coffee and enjoying the warmth that seeped into her bones from it. "Chorus will need us both a lot."  
  
"It will." Vanessa replied, much quieter than she normally would. Finally, she set her coffee down on the table and Emily decided to slide into the space just across from her close friend. "I'm sure that the hospital will be ready for you to use soon."  
  
"I'm sure it will be." Emily said. She paused, looking up at the wall and her eyes falling on the pinboard there. Someone who had been staying in the barracks had started to use it as a way to memorialize their fallen, and then people had started to add to it. There was a small photo of herself and Doyle that had been taken many years before. Emily had been the one to add it herself, in the days after the fall of Armonia.  
  
It had felt appropriate to do so at the time.

When Emily looked at it now, she just found herself being washed over with a certain said sentimentality. She couldn't say for sure whether or not Donald Doyle would have been proud of the Chorus that they were now fighting so hard to build. Knowing that they were so close to the place where he had died...  
  
It left a bad taste in her mouth.  
  
"Emily?" Vanessa said quietly, and it was more than enough to get Emily's attention away from that old photograph and back onto the conversation at hand.  
  
"Yes?" Emily asked, wrapping her fingers around the mug of coffee like latticework. She could feel the warmth through the ceramic cup, and it was nice. "What is it?"  
  
"I miss him too." Vanessa said, sighing. She reached up and brushed a hand back through her short hair like she was thinking before murmuring something to herself that Emily couldn't quite make out.  
  
"What was that, sweetie?"  
  
"I think that we can do more for him." Vanessa said, sitting up straight again. "To honor him, I mean."  
  
"We already have the Doyle Project." Emily sighed, and really, that on its own felt like it was a lot. The project that they had put together with the full intent and purpose of documenting the war was named after one man, even though a part of their end goal was to put together a memorial that listed every single name of every single person that had been lost during the war. "That feels like so much already."  
  
"It does." Vanessa said. "I think we might want to try renaming it, but..." She paused, her eyes locking with Emily's. "What do you know about the proposal for the hospital? Has it gone through yet?"  
  
"Of course it's gone through." Emily sighed. "It's going to be in the same place as the old Armonia General Hospital was, even if we're hoping that it will have a few more capabilities than the old one did." She paused, clicking her tongue as she thought. "I'm personally hoping that we'll have the advanced trauma unit approved, although a lot of work was put into making sure that we have a working maternity ward for after the war. You know how people are once wars are over!"  
  
"Happy?"  
  
"Horny!" Emily responded with a short, barking laugh that wasn't at all appropriate for the situation. "Statistically once a war is over, the birthrate is always sure to skyrocket. I doubt that Chorus will be any exception to that."

And really, Emily didn't think that it was going to be a problem at all in the long term of things. She knew in her heart that Chorus was going to be able to recover, even if it was going to take a bit of time for that to be able to happen.  
  
Emily just decided to sit up tall and chatter on, explaining herself.  
  
"The point is that when the proposal was written, we put a lot of thought into every small detail. How many beds belonged in each wing, how many labs we should have, how many people it'll be able to hold on average." Emily's voice trailed off for a moment and her eyes widened in realization that there was one major detail that it would seem had been overlooked. "I suppose that we didn't give it a special name. New Armonia General Hospital was thrown around, but it didn't get approved-"  
  
"I think that the hospital should be named for Doyle." Kimball said, rather abruptly. "I don't think that there was anyone else in either army that was more kind hearted than he was, and..." Kimball's voice trailed off as well, and Emily just waited. Whatever Vanessa was thinking, it was heavy and Emily had no intentions of rushing her along. "And I think that if we're going to care for people, we should do it under his watch. Symbolically, I mean."  
  
"Right." Emily said, knowing that she'd gone much more quiet than she had been at any other part of this conversation. "That's a good idea. I'll be sure to pass the suggestion along to the others involved with the planning of the hospital. After all, the name is something that people will likely be more flexible with, and there isn't anyone on Chorus that doesn't know about his..." Emily paused, because she couldn't help but feel that the word felt woefully inadequate, even though she knew that it was the only one that worked. "His sacrifice."  
  
Vanessa reached across the table and set a hand on top of Emily's, in the same way that Emily had done long ago. It was the same sort of comfort, and Emily was entirely glad to bask in it for the time being. All that she could really think about was how absurd this sort of meeting would have sounded just months ago, before the war had ended. Back before Locus and Felix's gambit had been revealed.  
  
Sharing coffee with the leader of the New Republic would have been a fever dream at the very best. And yet here Emily was, sitting across from Vanessa Kimball and enjoying coffee while they talk about work and the good of their people.  
  
How things had changed.

It was a change that Emily could wholeheartedly say that she liked. It felt natural, to be able to sit across the table from Vanessa Kimball, despite everything.  
  
Emily hesitated for just a moment before allowing herself to turn her hand and slide her fingers in between Vanessa's. The comfort that the gesture brought on its own was something that Emily desperately wanted to hold onto, because of what it could mean for the future.  
  
The future.  
  
Well, that was what this was all about, wasn't it? A better tomorrow for their people.  
  
And it started with names and lists, and a hospital. It started with rebuilding Armonia from the ground up because Chorus would one day need its capital again, and because it was a matter of time before things got worse and worse. Chorus' fight wasn't over yet, that was something that Emily was fairly sure of. It was a matter of time before someone much worse than Charon came knocking at their door.  
  
"You'll be a great president." Emily said, because that was the thing that rang in the back of her mind through all of this. "I think you'll be the greatest one that our planet ever has."  
  
Vanessa was staring at her, and her eyes were wide. Emily just flashed the other woman a wide smile, because what else was she supposed to say when she'd already said everything that she needed to.  
  
Emily blinked and decided to move on, because that was the least that she could do. "I was thinking that when we dedicate the hospital, we should invite the Reds and Blues along. I know that they wanted to be able to go on vacation, but I think the best thing would be for them to come along." She paused, still grinning widely. "After all, they're Chorus' heroes."  
  
Vanessa nodded. "I think that they would probably like that." She said, calm as ever. "Especially after everything."  
  
"I thought so too!" Emily chirped. "I mean, giving them a private moon was very kind of us, but they know what they mean to the people of Chorus! Besides, I think that their lieutenants might be missing them."  
  
"I'm positive that their lieutenants are missing them." Vanessa laughed, sipping from her mug again and relaxing back into her seat a little bit more. "I'm sure they'd come."  
  
"I know!" Emily responded. "That's why I mentioned it."

There was a moment of pause before Kimball fell into a fit of laughter, and Emily couldn't help but join her in it. They both knew that seeing Chorus to better pastures was going to be a difficult journey, and both of them were more than lucky to be able to go into it all together.  
  
Emily was sure of that.

* * *

Months of working on the Doyle Project would pass, and outside of the new capitol building in Armonia, a memorial was revealed. They tore off the cover on it and showed it for what it truly was.  
  
For Vanessa, it was difficult looking at the final product. It was hard looking at it and reading so many names of so many people that she'd known personally. The people that had come before her as leaders of the New Republic, foot soldiers, pilots, and civilians alike. She knew for a fact that she wasn't the only one that felt such a way when she looked at the memorial, but it hurt nonetheless.  
  
It was no surprise that for the first day of it being open to the public, the memorial was heavily populated for most of it. The remaining people of Chorus had flocked to the memorial to see it unveiled and pay their respects. It had taken hours for them to clear out, and now that it was mostly empty, Vanessa couldn't help the heavy sorrow that tugged at her.  
  
There was that too constant reminder in the back of her head that was so glad to remind her that she had been pulled along on a string for so long, pushed further and further into the war.  
  
Now she was standing there with her prize, the memory of everyone that had ever fallen during the Chorusan Civil War. The Civil War that she'd been a general in personally.  
  
Vanessa started her walk towards the left side of the monument, because when the project had been originally planned and designed, the idea for it to be read from left to right like a book had been an important one. The left side was the beginning of the war, and the right was all of the people that had perished in those final days.  
  
Save for a select few names, of course.  
  
She reached out and let her fingertips brush against the first name that was level with her eyes. She didn't know the person that it belonged to. For all Vanessa knew this was the name of someone's grandparent that had been killed in a crossfire. That didn't make them matter any less.  
  
She walked down the row though. Once in awhile, Vanessa would allow herself to stop and ruminate on certain names and memories.

All that she found herself able to think, at the end though, was that there were so many people that could have been saved. So many people that could have lived if they hadn't been strung along by the mercenaries in the same way that she had. So many people that she could have prevented the deaths of on her own.  
  
It all got to a point where it was too overwhelming, and Vanessa allowed herself to stop towards the center of the monument, where Doyle had been memorialized specifically. It was different from the others on it, and that was something that Vanessa couldn't help but look on with some amount of bitterness. Doyle had probably saved them all, but still the thought that he deserved so much more than any other person listed on the wall felt wrong.  
  
But his name was there with his photo. He was one of the people that had some of the most left behind for him. There were letters, flowers, all sorts of people paying respect to his memory. Not even two blocks away there was a hospital being constructed in his name (and they'd gotten the idea with the hospital's name mostly correct, even if it ended up sounding horribly redundant.)  
  
In another life, she and him could have been friends. Real friends, not just people that begrudgingly tried to work together despite the fact that it never worked until it was far too late.  
  
That was a lifetime that Vanessa couldn't allow herself to mourn.  
  
"So you came here too." A voice said behind her. Emily Grey's voice. What was she doing here?  
  
Vanessa turned slowly to look at her visitor. Emily had come late. She had to guess that the doctor had been too busy to be able to step away from her work for the sake of visiting the memorial, but Emily was there now. She'd come with a bouquet of flowers, which she was holding close to her chest like it was something precious.  
  
"I haven't left." Vanessa corrected, taking a half-step back and letting Emily slide up into the space beside her.  
  
Emily stood back from the memorial for a moment too long before silently creeping forward and kneeling down to place her bouquet of flowers among some of the others. It blended in, and while Vanessa was sure that the specific flowers in it had been chosen for a reason, she couldn't think of why.  
  
In a way, she managed to feel like she was intruding on something that Emily wouldn't have wanted for her to see.  
  
But if that was the case, Emily didn't say anything on the matter. She just stepped away from the monument once she was ready to stand beside Vanessa. "I'm sure that it's been a hard day for you." Emily said, keeping her voice down. "So many people to talk to."  
  
"It's been... busy." Vanessa responded. There were so many ways that she knew she could have gone ahead and expanded on what Emily had just said. She could have tried to clarify that she hadn't gotten a chance to even breathe, or she could have explained that a great part of her day was more or less treated as though she was on a campaign trail. The election was approaching swiftly, and while this wasn't officially a campaign stop, it managed to feel like one. "Now that it's over I just don't know what to do."  
  
"I can understand that." Doctor Grey responds, sighing. "Today was..." She hesitated, like there was something particular that she wanted to say that she couldn't quite find the words for. "You know, during the war, I had to teach myself to go to a happy place so that I couldn't get overwhelmed by it all."  
  
Vanessa was silent, because while that explained a lot, she didn't think that she had any right to question it. The war had taken a toll on all of them.  
  
Emily understood though. She saw that she was being given the chance to talk freely and took it.  
  
"I decided to go to a happy place because that way I didn't have to think about how many people died on my table, or how many of them never made it, or how many left my table never able to be the same again." Emily charged forward. "And now I look at this and..." She paused. "It's like it didn't even matter, even though I know that it did."

That on its own was enough to make the whole situation feel more real, in a way. Vanessa looked over at Emily, her eyes grazing over the other woman's expression and profile in search of something that she couldn't quite name. Perhaps she was just looking for some reassurance that this was normal.  
  
That the two of them were just feeling what everyone else on Chorus probably was these days.  
  
"Emily?" Vanessa said the name with some hesitation, trying to feel it out and get a good feeling for what was going on in her companion's head. It felt like there were things lingering beneath the surface that Emily wanted to say.  
  
"This mattered." Emily said finally, turning and letting her eyes lock with Vanessa's "All of it, despite everything that happened, it means something. Chorus is free for a better future, and there are people left-" Emily seemed to squirm a little bit in the spot that she was standing in. Full of energy, just the same as always. "But this is our home. And I think that's what we should remember above everything else."

  
  
Vanessa found herself moving, at least slightly. She drifted towards Emily and reached out so that she could lace her fingers together with Emily's. "It's our home." She repeated, calmly. "We've both done a lot for it."  
   
"And the work isn't done." Emily said, a look of pure determination flashing across her features. "There's so much that we need to do still."  
  
"And we'll get it done!" Vanessa replied. "I'm sure of it. Soon we're going to have the hospital, and the elections-"  
  
Emily nodded, taking a couple steps back away from the wall. Realizing what was happening, but not wanting to break the physical contact, Vanessa drifted back with Emily.  
  
Seeing the whole memorial all at once was quite a bit to take in. It was an action that had a rather distinct weight to it which Vanessa couldn't ignore. Emily pressed in close to her, and Vanessa realized just a moment too late that she had the doctor's head resting on her shoulder.  
  
For a long time, both of them stood there by the memorial and neither said anything, because everything that had needed to be said, had already been said.  
  
Vanessa couldn't resent it for a second.

* * *

The General Doyle General Hospital was officially finished on a Tuesday, and opened for business the very next day.  
  
If there was anything that Doctor Emily Grey had been expecting from it, she didn't know what it was. If anything, all that she found was that there was something about being in such a controlled environment was wrong. The chaos of any medical setting was there, but the pace and urgency of the battlefield was not.  
  
After so many years of being a doctor in the field, Emily almost didn't know how she was supposed to act. Not when the culture that surrounded her had changed so badly.  
  
The good thing about the hospital these days was that it wasn't used the same way as one of the military hospitals of months before. It had been quite some time since Doctor Grey had last needed to perform an amputation. Accidents still happened, and blood transfusions were always necessary, but the worst of it was long gone.  
  
Instead, Emily was faced with the need to attend to several births, and she always found herself running from one place to another. There was always a need for her to be somewhere, and Emily had a very active pager to make sure that she got where she needed to be.  
  
The new setting created an exhaustion that sank down into her bones and refused to release her. It left Emily dragging herself home late at night, sometimes not even to her own place of residence. The good thing was that when she went to that place that was not her own, Vanessa Kimball was always there.  
   
She was hard at work on her campaign, and the election was just around the corner. Emily found herself spending a lot of late nights with Vanessa, acting as a sort of impromptu strategist on a campaign that needed no managing.  
  
There wasn't a single person on Chorus that thought that the great General Vanessa Kimball would lose the election. She was, after all, a hero.  
  
She was an exhausted woman that was doing her best to hold the pieces together in a situation where that was near impossible to do.  
  
Emily loved her for it. She loved Chorus. She loved that Vanessa was cut from stone and fire, and she wore her position like armor. She loved that Vanessa wanted nothing more than to help the people of Chorus.  
  
On a Wednesday, Vanessa Kimball was elected.

Emily had ended up spending most of that day at the polls. Vanessa had been too busy for her to actually get to talk to her that day, but that was fine. It was just a side effect of what had to be done.  
  
In the end, President Vanessa Kimball had been elected by an absolutely enormous margin, and the voter turnout had been close to 100%. After the war, there wasn't a single person that thought that an election wouldn't matter.  
  
Vanessa celebrated her election at a small private party once the victory speeches had been given. The people invited were only a select few. The Lieutenants that had been assigned to the Reds and Blues during the war, the Reds and Blues themselves, Vanessa, a host of other soldiers, and Emily was certain that Santa was zipping around in the security systems.  
  
It had all been hard won. The result of years and years of struggling had all come to fruition finally. It was satisfying.  
  
It didn't take long before Chorus found itself in direct opposition with the UNSC. But months would pass. Chorus would stand strong, and the people of Chorus were proud of their president.  
  
Emily was perhaps more proud of her than anyone else was, not that she'd allow herself to say that out loud. It felt inappropriate to say, at the very least.  
  
All that she knew was that finally, after so many years of fighting, Chorus could be strong again, with a government that they'd agreed on.  
  
And that was sweeter than anything that Emily Grey could have thought of as a child. It was better than saving someone on the operating table, or researching old alien tech. It was more potent than pills, more bright than the shine of the newly reconstructed buildings of Armonia.  
  
Chorus, once again, was home.


End file.
